ٖ🔻Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has said that an unannounced meeting between the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and intelligence officials from Russia may lead to “progress.”

In this regard, many speculations have been raised about why John Ratcliffe suddenly traveled to Moscow on Tuesday. He arrived in the Russian capital aboard a military aircraft and left only a few hours later.

The U.S. president did not provide details about the contents of these discussions; however, he said that such meetings are not very unusual and added that Washington “wants to see the end of the war in Ukraine.” The most recent meeting of this kind took place in the months leading up to the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Kremlin has announced that John Ratcliffe did not meet with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told reporters: “Contacts were made with intelligence institutions.”

Peskov made these remarks at the daily media briefing session and in response to a question from a Russian reporter. The reporter asked whether Putin was aware of meetings involving the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and at what “level” these meetings were carried out.

He said: “It is still too early to say what impact this meeting will have on the restoration of bilateral relations between the United States and Russia.”