The CIA has offered Putin a helping hand – just when he needs it

The Kremlin’s charm offensive with the White House is in full swing, evident in its willingness to go along with Melania Trump’s initiative for a temporary humanitarian ceasefire in the town of Oleshky. In further signs of the ties between the US and Russia, the CIA on Saturday passed a warning to Moscow that appears to have thwarted a planned terrorist attack in the city. The agency passed on a warning to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) under its “duty to warn” policy, which requires it to raise alerts when they have specific, credible information about an impending attack, even to an unfriendly nation. Shorts The US Embassy in Moscow then warned its citizens still resident there about a “credible threat” of a terrorist attack “with the risk of mass casualties” on the grounds of the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve. This historic park, about half the size of Richmond Park, includes palaces, ponds and pavilions and is often used for musical and theatrical performances. It was hurriedly evacuated and police sniffer dogs and metal detector teams deployed to locate any potential explosive devices. Finding nothing, the authorities reopened the park on Sunday. The warning may be a fruit of a visit to Moscow by CIA Director John Ratcliffe in August and a mooted one by his FBI counterpart later this month. Although rumours abounded that Ratcliffe was there to warn Moscow against any escalation, both the Kremlin and the White House presented it instead as a routine contact to further cooperation. Certainly, Moscow could do with such assistance. Just as the FBI saw a massive flow of resources from fighting organised crime to combating terrorism after the 9/11 attacks, there are concerns within the Russian security community that the need to address Ukrainian subversion, sabotage and subversion has taken the focus away from other forms of terrorism. US President Donald Trump with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who visited Moscow in August (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Add that to the haemorrhage of military weapons from the war, which has already led to rising gun crime rates, and this is a potential threat which could seriously undermine Vladimir Putin’s carefully cultivated image as the “only man who can guarantee Russia’s security”. America’s warning to Russia is not purely altruistic. As an intelligence liaison at the embassy back in 2015 told The i Paper, it’s also “good advertising: if Uncle Sam cares about ordinary Russians, then he’ll certainly care about protecting anyone who is willing to help us” by becoming an asset. The alleged world-be Tsaritsyno attacker has been linked to a neo-Nazi movement, and there have been other recent incidents from the far right. In February, for example, another teenage neo-Nazi stabbed seven foreign students at the Bashkir State Medical University while painting a swastika with blood. However, the greater threat remains jihadist extremists, either from the restive Russian North Caucasus or else Central Asia. This February, a suicide bomber blew himself up near Moscow’s Savyolovsky Station in Moscow, killing a policeman, while in June, the FSB arrested a man preparing arson attacks on a synagogue. Infiltrating these groups, often formed on the basis of kin or from temporary migrant workers, is difficult and resource-intensive. In that context, as a US security source told The i Paper, “intelligence sharing, even between antagonists, is essential, and the Russians are coming to discover that.” This is not the first time there have been similar warnings. On 7 March 2024, the CIA alerted Moscow to the risk of an imminent major attack on a large public gathering in the city, issuing a public warning the next day. The Kremlin didn’t appear to take it that seriously, and Putin even suggested it had been “a provocation”. On 22 March, though, four terrorists from Islamic State – Khorasan Province, a Central Asian affiliate of the jihadist movement, attacked Moscow’s Crocus City Hall music venue, with guns, knives and incendiaries. All told, 151 people were killed and more than 600 wounded in the deadliest such attack in Russia for a decade. Afterwards, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov tried to justify his agency’s inaction by saying the US warning had been “general in nature.” This time, the authorities responded differently. The CIA had directed them towards videos the alleged terrorist had posted on TikTok, which showed him in military-style outfit and a balaclava, brandishing what looked like an assault rifle, also showing pictures taken at Tsaritsyno with the caption “I found a place.” On Sunday, a team of FSB commandos arrested a teenager in a Moscow suburb, accusing him of recording the videos. So far, at least, the Kremlin has avoided the kind of clumsy propaganda evident after the Crocus City Hall attack, when they tried rather implausibly to suggest there was a Ukrainian connection. Nor has there been any reluctance on the part of the FSB to acknowledge the US role and thank them for the warning. Likewise, Kirill Dmitriev, one of the key figures in current negotiations, hailed the CIA for acting “in a spirit of good faith”. And so the relationship between Russia and the US under Donald Trump grows stronger once more, with Ukraine left to wonder whether it can rely on America for anything.