Experts see troubling signal in CIA chief’s Moscow visit

A reported CIA director’s visit to Moscow has drawn attention in Lithuania, where experts see the unusually visible trip as a warning to Russia not to test NATO.

The Wall Street Journal and CBS News reported that the CIA chief sought to persuade Russia not to attack NATO members. Politico said the warning also involved possible escalation in the Baltic region. The CIA has not commented on the visit. U.S. President Donald Trump described it as “semi-routine” and said he wanted the war in Ukraine to end.

Linas Linkevičius, Lithuania’s former foreign minister and a former ambassador, said the visit itself should not be entirely surprising because Washington has issued warnings about possible Russian provocations on NATO’s eastern flank for some time. He focused instead on how difficult the trip was to conceal.

The aircraft used to arrive at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was the world’s largest military transport plane, Linkevičius said, making a discreet arrival impossible. The visit lasted four hours, which he interpreted as evidence that it was not intended for extended negotiations. “It was simply a message,” he said.

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It was simply a message.

Linkevičius said Moscow may have received both a warning and an indication of the consequences of ignoring it. He compared the episode with a previous visit by then-CIA director William Burns, when Russia was reportedly warned about a possible invasion of Ukraine. That warning did not prevent the full-scale aggression that began the following February, he said.

The current situation differs because Ukraine was not a NATO member, Linkevičius added. The present concern involves NATO territory, Article 5 and other alliance commitments, making the red line clearer in his view.

Tomas Janeliūnas, a professor at Vilnius University’s Institute of International Relations and Political Science, cautioned that public information cannot show exactly what data U.S. intelligence possesses. Still, he said the CIA chief would not have flown directly to Moscow without a serious reason. Recent signals, he argued, support the possibility that Russia is seriously considering provocations against NATO countries and that Washington is trying to stop them before they occur.

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The information must have been serious enough to prompt the CIA director to fly directly to Moscow. This is certainly not done for no reason.