Head of Russian intelligence service on meeting with CIA director: ‘We discussed issues that fall within the purview of the intelligence services’

Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, said he met with CIA Director John Ratcliffe during Ratcliffe’s August 25 visit to Moscow, and that the two discussed “a number of issues that fall within the purview of the intelligence services.”“And the purview of the intelligence services, as you well understand, is a rather delicate and special matter,” Naryshkin told the Russian news agency Interfax.Naryshkin called the meeting with the CIA director “nothing unusual,” describing it as “a working format.”“In the practice of the special services, meetings between agency heads or personal meetings held online are part of our work,” he said.CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unannounced visit to Moscow on August 25 to warn Russian authorities against attacking NATO countries — particularly Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — according to reporting by Politico and The Wall Street Journal. U.S. President Donald Trump said the CIA director had visited Moscow for for some “semi-routine” reason.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.