Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump issues first comment on CIA chief’s mysterious visit to Moscow

US president Donald Trump has said “something may come out of” the CIA director John Ratcliffe ’s visit to Moscow on Tuesday.

Trump said the US is “working very hard” to end the war in Ukraine , calling the CIA chief a “fantastic guy”.

Answering a question on Ratcliffe’s visit to Russia , Trump said that the CIA director made a visit to Russia on a “very semi-routine” basis and “something may come out of it”.

The Kremlin revealed yesterday that CIA director Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials during a mysterious visit this week but did not meet president Vladimir Putin.

Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov framed communication between the two countries’ intelligence agencies as positive.

This comes as Kremlin sources said Russia is considering stepping up its ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv .

Putin is contemplating hitting targets in the city centre and on critical infrastructure elsewhere in Ukraine, after concluding that efforts to negotiate a peace deal have reached a dead end, they said.

EU countries, including Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland, are urging Brussels to revive efforts to use immobilised Russian sovereign assets to fund Ukraine, the Financial Times reported today.

A ‌letter from a coalition of ‌states to ‌the European Commission will call on ⁠the EU's executive to restart work on plans to fund Ukraine using Russian central ‌bank assets, ​the FT reported, ‌citing four ⁠people briefed ⁠on the document.

Donald Trump has said “something may come out of” the CIA director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow on Tuesday.

Answering a question on Ratcliffe’s visit to Russia, Trump said that the CIA director made a visit to Russia on a “very semi-routine” basis.

"Something may come out of it," Trump said, calling Ratcliffe a “fantastic guy”.

Russia is considering stepping up its ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv, including targets in the city centre, and on critical infrastructure elsewhere in Ukraine after concluding that efforts to negotiate a peace deal have reached a dead end, said three people close to the Kremlin.

Speaking to Bloomberg, they said negotiation frameworks had effectively collapsed, while president Vladimir Putin remained unlikely to end the ‌war in response ​to sanctions ‌or Ukrainian ⁠strikes on Russian refineries ⁠and logistics networks.