US Air Force Flight to Moscow Carried CIA Director in Rare Russia Visit, Reports Say

A C-17 Globemaster III left Riga Tuesday morning and landed in Moscow about 75 minutes later. CBS News and Axios say CIA Director John Ratcliffe was aboard. The CIA won’t say why. The Kremlin says it knows nothing.

A U.S. Air Force C-17 transport flew to Moscow from Latvia on Tuesday carrying CIA Director John Ratcliffe for meetings whose purpose has not been disclosed, U.S. news outlets reported.

The aircraft, a Boeing C-17A Globemaster III with serial 07-7181 using the callsign RCH4555, or Reach 4555, left Riga International Airport at about 8:50 a.m. Moscow time and touched down at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport around 10:04 a.m. Moscow time after a hop of roughly an hour and 15 minutes. It departed Moscow later the same day and returned to Riga in the evening.

Direct flights by identifiable U.S. military aircraft into Russia have been extremely uncommon since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and open-source flight trackers noticed the movement before any government acknowledged it. CBS News, citing sources familiar with the situation, first reported that Ratcliffe was aboard and in Moscow for meetings, describing it as his first known trip to Russia as CIA director. Axios, citing two U.S. officials, reported that Ratcliffe left Washington on Sunday aboard a U.S. government aircraft bound for Latvia, then flew the Riga-Moscow leg on the C-17 on Tuesday.

If confirmed, the trip would be the first publicly known visit to Moscow by a CIA director since William Burns went in November 2021, and the highest-level visit to Russia by a Trump administration official since U.S. envoys traveled there in January.

What the governments are saying — and not saying

No U.S. or Russian official has publicly explained the mission.

The CIA declined to comment or did not respond to requests from multiple news organizations. The White House, the Pentagon and the Air Force offered no public explanation or confirmation of the flight’s purpose as of Tuesday.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters he did “not have such information” when asked about the aircraft, and said no meeting with representatives of the U.S. administration was scheduled at the Kremlin this week.

As of Tuesday, no primary U.S. or Russian source had identified whom Ratcliffe met or what was discussed. That gap remains the central unanswered question of the day’s reporting.

The route: South Carolina to Andrews to Riga to Moscow

The C-17’s path across the Atlantic was traceable in public flight data days before the Moscow leg drew attention.

On Aug. 22, the aircraft flew from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey to Joint Base Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, the former Joint Base Charleston, according to flight-tracking data cited by aviation trade outlets. The following day it continued to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

It left Andrews for Riga later the same day, according to flight-tracking data reported by TWZ and Simple Flying. Flightradar24 records list the aircraft as arriving in Riga on Aug. 23.

A second Air Force jet made the same Atlantic run. A Boeing C-40B with serial 02-0042, callsign RCH790, also flew from Andrews to Riga, arriving after the C-17, according to Flightradar24 records cited by Simple Flying.

Why a cargo jet, and not a Gulfstream

For aviation professionals, the choice of airframe is the oddest detail in the story.

The C-17A is the Air Force’s strategic and tactical airlifter, built to move outsized cargo and troops. It carries a maximum payload of 170,900 pounds across an 88-foot cargo compartment with 18 pallet positions. Using one to move a CIA director is unusual unless the mission required something the aircraft uniquely offers — a large staff, significant cargo or extensive communications equipment. Recent U.S. government missions into Russia have typically used smaller C-37 Gulfstreams, according to AeroTime.

The C-40B, by contrast, is purpose-built for exactly this kind of trip. Derived from the Boeing 737-700 business jet, it carries 26 to 32 passengers and is operated by the 89th Airlift Wing at Andrews for high-priority personnel transport with secure communications.

The Air Force fact sheet says the C-40 B/C “provides safe, comfortable and reliable transportation for U.S. leaders to locations around the world,” and describes the C-40B as “designed to be an ‘office in the sky’ for senior military and government leaders.”

The C-40B appears to have staged through Riga, and there is no public track of it continuing on to Moscow. The timing suggests it carried Ratcliffe from Washington to Latvia, with the switch to the C-17 for the final leg. Primary sources have not explained that switch.

One possible explanation circulating in aviation analysis remains unconfirmed. The Air Force fielded its next-generation Roll-On Conference Capsule in March, an announcement the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center made public in July. The system replaces the modified Airstream trailers known as the “Silver Bullet” and consists of two modules: a senior-leader suite with a workstation, seating, a convertible bed and a lavatory, plus a conference and staff module with a large monitor, four workstations and six chairs. Secure voice, data and video run through an accompanying Steel Eagle pallet, and unlike the Silver Bullet, the capsule is certified for occupancy during all phases of flight.

Whether such a capsule was aboard 07-7181 has not been confirmed by any primary source. It has been raised only in secondary aviation analysis as a way a single airframe could serve as a self-contained flying headquarters for a larger team and its equipment.

Imagery and Ukraine context

Video said to show the C-17 on approach over a shopping center near Vnukovo circulated on social media, though news organizations including Newsweek said they could not independently verify when or where it was filmed. Separate social media video purporting to show a U.S. diplomatic convoy under Russian police escort in Moscow shortly after the landing also remains unverified.

Ahead of the visit, the United States asked Ukraine to suspend strikes on Russia until the delegation had left, Axios reported, citing a source with knowledge of the matter.

The trip lands against a broader intelligence backdrop. The Wall Street Journal has reported that U.S. intelligence gathered information indicating Russia was making early preparations for a possible military mobilization and had plans to test NATO’s resolve. The Wall Street Journal also raised the U.S. conflict with Iran, a Russian ally, and a new U.S. economic-pressure campaign against Tehran announced the day before the trip. No source has confirmed either subject was on the agenda.

Speculation in secondary coverage about prisoner swaps, Iran or signaling to NATO rests on no primary sourcing.

Background

Ratcliffe has had contact with his Russian counterparts before. In March 2025, he held a phone call with Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the first such contact in more than two years, according to TASS. In January, U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Moscow aboard smaller aircraft.

He has also figured in prisoner diplomacy, personally negotiating the April 2025 release of Ksenia Karelina, according to CBS News. The CIA was also involved in the 2024 exchange that freed Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, before Ratcliffe took office.

The last comparable visit was Burns’ November 2021 trip, when he met senior Russian officials, including Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, and spoke with Putin by phone to warn against invading Ukraine. Some secondary coverage placed the last previous C-17 flight to Moscow in 2017, but FlightGlobal notes that a U.S. Air Force C-17 flew to Russia in 2020 to deliver medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic, and AeroTime reported that a U.S. Air Force aircraft was tracked at Vnukovo in February 2025 during the exchange that freed American teacher Marc Fogel.