Russia denies knowledge of US military plane amid CIA director visit report

The Kremlin denied any knowledge of a large U.S. military aircraft that flight-tracking data showed traveling from NATO member Latvia to Moscow early Tuesday, before later reports indicated Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief John Ratcliffe had traveled to the Russian capital. Flight monitoring picked up the U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III taking off from the Latvian capital Riga and arriving at Vnukovo airport on the outskirts of Moscow, one of Russia's major international aviation hubs. The flight's publicly available schedule listed no destination, but the Russian Tass state news agency reported that the aircraft had touched down at roughly 10 a.m. local time. It had traveled to Latvia from Camp Springs in Maryland, home to the U.S. military's Joint Base Andrews. A spokesperson for the U.S. European Command said they had no information to offer when approached about the tracking data on Tuesday. The Pentagon referred queries to the U.S. Air Force, which has been contacted for comment. The Latvian Defense Ministry told Newsweek that the flight had been "properly coordinated and authorized for operation" within the country's airspace, but said it could not provide any more information because the plane was not operated by its armed forces. U.S. military aircraft typically require pre-approval from the host country to fly within its airspace. Russian sources and open-source intelligence accounts shared unverified footage purportedly showing the C-17 landing at Vnukovo on Tuesday. Newsweek could not independently verify when the video was filmed, but it appears to show a C-17 descending over a shopping center near Vnukovo airport. Another military transport aircraft, a U.S. Air Force C-40 Clipper, traveled from Camp Springs to Riga on Sunday. No tracking information is available for this aircraft after it arrived in Latvia. The C-40 is also a military transport plane, and can be configured to carry VIP passengers. It's not clear why a U.S. transport aircraft would land in Moscow, but when U.S. planes have arrived in the past, they've either delivered supplies or carried traveling diplomats or top security officials. CBS News and a Telegram channel linked to Moscow's security services separately reported that Ratcliffe was in the Russian capital. Newsweek has reached out to the CIA for comment. U.S. officials asked Ukraine's military last week not to strike certain areas of Russia, including Moscow, with long-range weapons on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday because a high-level official would be traveling to the capital, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The anonymous sources said Ukraine had agreed to the request. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday there were no plans to meet with U.S. administration officials in Moscow this week, according to remarks cited by state media. President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had postponed a planned visit to Moscow to negotiate with Kremlin officials on a peace deal for Ukraine, Tass reported on Sunday. The state news agency, citing an anonymous source, claimed it was unlikely the two officials would visit Moscow before the end of August. When Witkoff and Kushner visited Moscow in January for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, they arrived at Vnukovo airport in a U.S. government aircraft, state media reported. Russian media speculated the C-17 reported to have landed in Moscow on Tuesday may have made the journey for a prisoner swap, although Newsweek could not independently verify this. The CIA has been involved in previous prisoner swaps, and Ratcliffe was reported to have been key in the release of Russian-American citizen Ksenia Karelina in April 2025. A prisoner exchange is the most likely explanation for a visit from Ratcliffe, said John Foreman, a former U.K. defense attache to both Moscow and Kyiv. But making sure Russia doesn't escalate its current hybrid attacks against Europe, as well as a Ukraine peace deal could be on the agenda, too, he told Newsweek.