Reuters: Zelensky meets CIA Director John Ratcliffe at Ireland’s Shannon Airport, less than a month after Ratcliffe’s first trip to Moscow for talks

Filed 50m ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Prime Minister's Office · GODL-India · via Wikimedia Commons

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and CIA Director John Ratcliffe reportedly spoke informally at Shannon Airport while their planes refueled, according to two sources cited by Reuters. The content of the conversation was not disclosed, and Zelensky continued on to New York for a scheduled meeting with President Trump on September 22.

The encounter comes less than a month after Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow and reportedly met senior Russian intelligence officials, though the Kremlin says he had no direct contact with Putin. The Financial Times has called Ratcliffe a key U.S. negotiator on the war, a label the White House denies. The Kremlin says peace talks involving the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine could resume in October.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A spy chief bouncing between Moscow and an unscheduled tarmac chat with Ukraine's president, all while the White House insists he is not really a negotiator, is the kind of thing that makes a person squint. Either he is doing diplomacy or he is not, and the fact that nobody involved will say which suggests somebody wants it both ways. When the official line is this careful, that is usually the moment worth watching closest.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Umbrella Pants · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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