Lavrov reveals what brought CIA chief and Vatican envoy to Moscow

The simultaneous high-level contacts come as Moscow says it has lost faith in Western promises Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has addressed this week’s unusually intense diplomatic traffic in Moscow, shedding light on talks with the Vatican’s top diplomat while remaining deliberately vague about a visit by CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, and Ratcliffe were both in the Russian capital this week, prompting RBK to ask Lavrov what lay behind the visits.

“In both cases, those who came to us wanted to come and talk,” Lavrov said in an interview published on Friday.

Gestures of goodwill and broken promises Lavrov said his discussions with Gallagher focused heavily on the Ukraine conflict, with the Vatican envoy reiterating a desire to see hostilities brought to an end as soon as possible and offering continued assistance on humanitarian issues, including prisoner and body exchanges.

Read more Kiev’s terror, Orthodox Church persecution and Moscow-Vatican ties: Key points from Lavrov’s meeting with Holy See’s envoy The foreign minister used the meeting to recount a long series of diplomatic agreements broken, abandoned or derailed by Kiev and its Western sponsors – from the 2014 Maidan coup-era agreement to the Minsk accords used to buy Kiev time to rearm, and the 2022 Istanbul talks derailed by London.

“I pointed out that there had been no shortage of goodwill on our part...

I think he understood everything.

I would say he had no counterarguments, apart from the general slogan that ‘it needs to stop as soon as possible,’” Lavrov said.

Lavrov also told Gallagher that the Western push for a ceasefire along the current line of contact would merely freeze the fighting without producing a lasting settlement.

Plans to deploy British- and French-led “stabilization forces” would effectively preserve the “neo-Nazi regime” in Kiev that suppresses the Russian language and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, he said.

Quiet intelligence channels Lavrov was much more guarded about Ratcliffe’s visit.

Read more Kremlin reveals why CIA chief visited Moscow “I wasn’t there,” he said, noting that intelligence agencies routinely communicate through established channels and that “there is nothing unusual” about such contacts taking place quietly.

Diplomats, he added, also often work “in silence.” “Of course, we do not disclose details that are too sensitive or are still being worked out, where it is important not to jeopardize possible compromises and consensus,” Lavrov said.