Last Monday the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director (DCI) John Ratcliffe and his retinue boarded a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster transport plane at Joint Base Andrews airfield in Maryland, stopped presumably to refuel at the Riga airport in NATO member Latvia, and then flew on to land at Vnukovo International Airport, one of the four airports that serve the Russian capitol Moscow. The plane touched down on Tuesday at 9 am local time. The trip had been unannounced and its purpose was somewhat of a mystery. Ratcliffe and company departed the airport security zone in a diplomatic motorcade of armored vehicles that either were being transported in the plane itself or drawn from the US Embassy and CIA Station's own supply of administrative vehicles. One source speculates that the vehicles were being carried in the large transport aircraft because they were equipped with secure communications that would enable them to connect with Washington without the Russians having the ability to intercept what was being said.

It was Ratcliffe's first visit to actually meet with the Russian leadership, most notably the FSB national security's Aleksandr Bortnikov and Sergei Naryshkin, his foreign intelligence counterpart, with whom he had had some telephone discussions. There may have been some hope on the part of both Ratcliffe and President Donald J Trump that a meeting with President Vladimir Putin might be arranged, but that did not occur. Insofar as can be determined, the trip to Russia and the meeting took place due to insistence by Washington that there were several very important national security related issues involving both countries that needed to be discussed urgently during what the Russians afterwards described as "contacts between security services."