Ukraine War · 30 August, 2026 · 2 min read
CIA Director John Ratcliffe Proposes Trump-Putin-Zelensky Trilateral Summit in Moscow
CIA Director Ratcliffe proposed trilateral summit of Trump, Putin, Zelensky in Moscow to end war Axios cited two briefed sources confirming Ratcliffe's proposal during the secret Moscow trip
4 outlets, one story, no spin found.
3 of 4 outlets skipped it: one outlet names CIA head as William (Mike) Burns.
4outlets compared
Al Jazeera-style outlets differ: الشرق names Brennan, others name Ratcliffe or Burns for the same trip
Secret Moscow talks
Axios, as cited by multiple outlets, said CIA Director John Ratcliffe proposed a trilateral summit in Moscow that would bring together President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to try to end the war in Ukraine. The reporting tied Ratcliffe’s secret trip to Moscow on Tuesday to efforts to determine whether the heads of Russia’s intelligence services could help persuade Putin to move toward resuming negotiations with Ukraine with American mediation.
Ratcliffe met in Moscow with Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), and Axios sources said he concluded Bortnikov could be a “constructive” party to help restart diplomatic efforts. Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, expressed skepticism about Putin’s intentions, with Kyrylo Tymoshenko telling reporters on Friday that Putin ordered the Russian military to prepare several operational scenarios for an attack in northern Ukraine, including around Kyiv and Chernihiv.
Diverging assessments
The outlets described the proposal as part of a broader U.S. diplomatic push, with Axios saying American officials told Zelensky that Ratcliffe also raised the possibility of resuming peace talks during the Moscow meetings. The New York Times, as quoted in the coverage, reported that Ratcliffe gave Bortnikov a “cautionary assessment” of the war’s status and urged Russia to strike a deal before the situation worsens.
At the same time, Ukrainian officials said their intelligence indicates Putin plans a major escalation of the war, with عربي21 adding that the escalation would run in parallel with a new U.S. push to revive negotiations. Zelenskyy’s deputy chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, told local media on Thursday that talks with Russia under American mediation could resume in September, while Zelenskyy on Friday appeared to welcome Washington’s diplomatic efforts and thanked the US for what he called the "necessary tone" of its conversations with Russia.
What’s at stake next
The reporting said the trilateral summit idea had been floated by the Trump administration previously, with Zelensky expressing support while Putin rejected it, and American officials briefed Zelensky on Friday about Ratcliffe’s Moscow discussions and the summit proposal. Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, mediated by the Trump administration, were described as stalled after being halted in mid-February following the outbreak of the war with Iran, and White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were said to have held separate talks with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in recent months without making significant progress.
In the same period, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov said US-mediated talks with Russia could resume in September, while Zelenskyy told reporters on Friday that the Trump administration is “pushing toward a pragmatic vision of what needs to be done and what should be achieved.” The CIA declined to comment on the information, leaving the next steps—whether any summit proceeds and whether negotiations restart—tied to competing Ukrainian concerns about escalation and the U.S. effort to revive diplomacy.