A US Air Force transport plane landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on Tuesday, according to data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24. However, the Kremlin said that it had no information about the aircraft.
The aircraft, which was a Boeing Globemaster, had a US-registered tail number and had flown to Moscow from Riga, in Latvia, at around 0700 GMT, according to Reuters.
The Kremlin press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Tuesday that there were no plans to hold meetings with representatives of the US administration this week.
The data also showed that the aircraft arrived in Riga on August 23 from the US Camp Springs airbase near Washington, DC.
The flight had left from the US Air Force’s Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Sunday afternoon just before 5 pm ET, Flightradar24 data showed.
The base is the primary military facility that is used by the US president and senior officials for official air travel.
However, it was later revealed that the CIA chief was in Moscow for meetings. “CIA Director John Ratcliffe is in Moscow for meetings”, reported CBS News, citing sources familiar with the situation.
News of the CIA Director’s trip comes after a US Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane was spotted at a Moscow airport, along with a US diplomatic motorcade. Neither the US nor Russian governments had made any comment on the identity of the US official in Russia or the purpose of the visit.
It appears to be Ratcliffe’s first known trip to Russia as CIA director, though he has maintained contact with Russian intelligence counterparts.
The CIA played a role in recent US-Russia detainee exchanges, including the April 2025 release of a US-Russian dual national, Ksenia Karelina, whose case Ratcliffe personally negotiated.
The agency was also involved in the 2024 prisoner exchange that secured the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan.
Earlier, the mystery over US military aircraft’s landing had compounded when the Kremlin said that it had no information about the aircraft.