Kremlin says no talks planned with US envoys this week

The Kremlin said Tuesday that no talks between Moscow and US envoys are planned this week, as Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations remain stalled.

“No, there are no such plans,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a press briefing.

Citing sources, Russian state news agency Tass reported in early August that a visit by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner could take place within a week to 10 days in an effort to revive Ukraine peace talks, which Moscow and Kyiv have said stalled as Washington shifted its focus to the Iran war.

On Aug. 14, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said President Vladimir Putin was ready to meet the two US envoys if they traveled to Moscow, but stressed that what mattered were the proposals they would bring.

Witkoff and Kushner last visited Moscow to meet Putin in late January.

At the press briefing, Peskov also said statements by Western politicians, particularly Finnish President Alexander Stubb and successive British premiers, including Prime Minister Andy Burnham, indicated a continued “aggressive” stance toward Russia.

“They want the war to continue. They're deceiving their voters, telling them that Russia could be defeated. … And they apparently refuse to acknowledge the realities on the ground,” Peskov said.

He reaffirmed Russia’s opposition to the deployment of NATO military contingents in Ukraine and rejected the idea of a “free economic zone” in the Donbas region.

Asked about reports that a US military plane landed in Moscow on Tuesday morning, Peskov said: “No, I don't have such information.”

According to Flightradar24 data, a US Air Force C-17A Globemaster III flew from the Latvian capital Riga to Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport after arriving two days earlier from Camp Springs in the US, near Joint Base Andrews.

Later Tuesday, CBS News reported, citing sources familiar with the situation, that CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in the Russian capital for meetings. Neither US authorities nor the CIA have commented on the report.

Russian journalist Alexander Yunashev said in a statement on Telegram that his sources confirmed Ratcliffe had flown to Moscow.

Yunashev said that Putin was initially scheduled to participate in a large event on Tuesday, though this was postponed a couple of days ago.

"Considering that my sources confirmed that it was the CIA director who flew to Moscow, we can now speculate on the reason for the meeting that led to the presidential schedule being changed," he said.

The reports mark the first such visit since former CIA Director William Burns travelled to Moscow in November 2021.