CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s secretive Aug. 25 visit to Moscow was meant to deliver a message to the Kremlin: “Don’t test us on Article 5.”
That’s what Glen Howard, president and chairman of The Saratoga Foundation, who spent two decades leading the Jamestown Foundation, tells Independence Avenue Media in an exclusive interview.
“The intelligence data indicates the Russians are preparing something,” Howard says. “CIA directors don’t get on planes and fly to Moscow without a very good reason.”
The Wall Street Journal and Politico reported that the visit was meant to deliver a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin not to attack any NATO countries — specifically the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Howard argues that Putin’s options for attacking NATO members are limited, with the Baltic states better prepared than in previous years.
Still, “Putin is a gambler and he likes risk,” Howard says. “He may look at the equation and say, Is it worth the risk with Trump? But the flip side is that they’ve run out of Patriots and he may see us from our military-industrial base as being weak and we’re bogged down in Iran and the Gulf.”
A known hawk on Russia, Ratcliffe has mostly kept himself in the shadows of the Trump administration until now, Howard notes. His greater visibility may signal a shifting White House position.
In the wide-ranging interview, Howard also discusses reports of the CIA’s hand in Ukraine’s long-range strikes in Russia and what 50,000 North Korean reinforcements would mean militarily.
The interview was recorded on Aug. 27, 2026, and has been edited for length and clarity.
Kiryl Sukhotski, Independence Avenue Media: Glen, so this visit by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Moscow — very unusual, very surprising. The last time a CIA director visited Moscow was nearly five years ago, just in the run-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. So what do you read into this? How significant is this visit?
Glen Howard, president and chairman of The Saratoga Foundation: It’s a pretty significant visit and it also has echoes of Bill Burns’ visit in 2021 when he went there with a warning — and obviously President Putin did not heed that warning. In fact, Burns didn’t meet with Putin, but he delivered [the warning], and was quite vocal about it, but the Russians went ahead and proceeded with [the full-scale invasion anyway].
CIA directors don’t get on planes and fly to Moscow without a very good reason. And so, as I anticipated, he went there with a warning. And so the exclusive that was given to the Wall Street Journal indicates the first confirmation that it was about the Baltic states and was a warning about NATO.
So I think the context here is that he was meeting with his Russian intelligence counterparts. He’s delivering a message. And I think the message is: don’t test us on Article 5. Don’t provoke us, because we will fulfill our pledges on Article 5, despite everything that’s been said in the MAGA world about NATO and [it] not living up [to its commitments]. Ambassador [Matthew] Whitaker has been very vocal about support for NATO — it’s not quite the love fest it was with the Biden administration, but there have also been signs that they’re not going to abandon NATO, and the [July 7-8] Ankara summit was a success.
So the context and timing here are very important. The context is that for the first time you’re seeing Ratcliffe, who has been in the shadows of Trump administration policy-making, surface and playing a very lead role. He’s been very reluctant to play a visible role — and according to media reports, the CIA has taken over the bombing campaign, helping Ukraine target the attacks on Russian refineries.
You have Ratcliffe go to the president and say: well, Mr. President, I would like to actually send CIA advisors to help the Ukrainians target Russian refineries as a part of their drone campaign, because we really have this concern that what happens if Ukrainians inherently attack and escalate something with the Russians, and it’s better for us to have our hands on the control of what the Ukrainians are hitting and striking against and prevent this from escalating. And Trump said: okay, sounds like a good idea.
And so this is the context, because the context here is that Ratcliffe has been in the shadows, and he’s been doing these things, but he’s not played a public role. Now, the question is what prompted them to do this? Well, it’s pretty obvious to you and I that in the news headlines in the last month, you’re seeing all this probing going on.
You’ve seen Romanians shooting down drones in the Black Sea, you’ve seen the drones in Leipzig with the Germans. So you’ve seen the Russians escalating a sabotage campaign in Europe, and so certainly, if you’re covering intelligence, you’re seeing this disinformation data. You also saw the Russians go into the Saatse Boot [an Estonian local road that runs through Russian territory] and momentarily seize the territory or go into the Boot and then pull back. So the Russians have been prodding and probing along the NATO periphery.
IAM: And we saw those intelligence leaks and reports trickling down in various publications, most recently in the Wall Street Journal, that there is apparently an assessment by the intelligence community that Russia is indeed planning something. So did that prompt Ratcliffe’s visit? And then what can the United States do?
Howard: Well, I would just say, listen, you gotta step back here. And you can’t look at this only through the prism of Trump. You can’t predict the guy. Look at the advisors and look at what’s been happening.
[Trump] said Ratcliffe’s visit was semi-routine. Okay, what does that mean? So he’s playing it down. And he’s playing it down for good reason because he wants to keep the door open to negotiations with the Russians. So it’s a carrot and stick.
And then what is the only statement that came out of the CIA during the Ratcliffe visit? It was, we told the Ukrainians not to bomb Moscow while we’re there. And they told the Russians, we told the Ukrainians not to do this. And the Russians are like, wait a second, comrade, you guys are supposedly directing the attacks, and now you’re telling us that you told them.
So think about that in context. And it means that we have a hand on the controls here. And so he made this statement, and then on Monday [Aug. 31] he’s going to come out and he’s going to brief NATO allies in Europe on this visit to Moscow.
Then you see [Trump special envoys Jared] Kushner and [Steve] Witkoff agree, according to [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, to come to Kyiv for Independence Day. Then they don’t show up. The question is, why? The Trump administration is trying to keep their powder dry. So they’re trying to keep the options open with the Russians in negotiations, but they’re still carrying the stick. And the stick is this bombing campaign against the refineries.
But at the same time, going back to your question, the intelligence data indicates the Russians are preparing something. So what are the known knowns? The known knowns are that we have the upcoming Duma elections. We have [rumors of] a mobilization drive of anywhere between 250,000 and 500,000 men that the Russians are gearing up, wanting to plan for some final push. But there’s also reports that they’re probing on the periphery.
So if you believe that Ratcliffe is the adult in the room, who doesn’t join in every debate in the White House, to say, let’s bully Russia, but he’s been very calculated. He’s known to be a hawk on Russia, but he’s just keeping his powder dry, he wants legitimacy with Trump. And now he has his chance to weigh in.
IAM: This is very interesting because the midterms are in just over two months. Do you think that midterms are a factor in Putin’s thinking as well?
Howard: Certainly. I mean, I think everybody’s looking at it. I mean even the Chinese and the Iranians are looking at it. And Trump knows that, and that’s why he’s talking economics now.
IAM: So to what extent do you think Putin is bluffing and to what extent do you think that the Baltics threat is real, and he can or he may test Article 5?
Howard: Well the question is do the Russians have the military manpower to start a new front somewhere in the Baltics? And if you look at the Polish army, which is one of the best and most modernizing armies in Europe, I don’t think they’re gonna test them from Belarus.
Look, if train cars start arriving in Belarus and you see a massive surge of Russian forces, you’re gonna see that through satellites. So that will lead to response X by the U.S. Or little green men may come over in [the Suwalki Gap] and try to test it — but as far as I know, the Poles and the Lithuanians will hammer them, they won’t tolerate it. And as far as I know, the Estonians have been adamant that if something happens, we will hit you, we won’t tolerate that.
And I think that the Ratcliffe visit basically said, you may have heard us in the past say that NATO is not important, but do not test us here. And Whitaker has been very adamant about that. There’s been no wavering, he hasn’t buckled at all on his support for NATO. All they’ve said is we want you to provide more support. So the question here is militarily, do the Russians have enough manpower to do something? And will they try to cross the border and will they be hit?
And there’s a difference between NATO and the Ukrainian Air Force. [NATO] has a lot of air power. And if they try to cross over and do something, they will hit them. And they’ll hit them hard. And they won’t allow them to develop a foothold somewhere. And I certainly do not see the Russians testing Finland — as you know, the Finns are pretty modernized and ready to do something.
So when you’re looking around the periphery here, where will they strike? What will they do? I don’t see a lot of options. I think there’s probing, more probing, and then you’re gonna see a counter move by the U.S. You could see a redeployment of troops into Poland.
And I don’t think the Belarusian army is gonna get in — I mean, come on, you know, if [Belarusian President Aleksandr] Lukashenko wanted to get in the war, he would have sent 50,000 Belarusian soldiers to the Donbas, and he didn’t.
And you also see Zelenskyy saying 50,000 North Koreans are maybe coming to reinforce the Russians. What does that mean militarily? 50,000 North Koreans going into Kursk does something militarily called backfill. That allows the Russians to step back, redeploy assets and manpower to do something else.
So maybe there’s truth to this idea that they may be planning to move somewhere else. And intelligence sees more North Koreans getting on trains and planes flying to Voronezh [in southwestern Russia] and redeploying. So there’s some things that maybe the intel community in the U.S. is seeing that they don’t like, and they see it as a red line.
So maybe they see that and they see the intelligence adds up, and I think Ratcliffe saw that. And he’s not someone who’s an alarmist. He’s been very careful and he has the ear of the president.
IAM: When you’re reading all this with what we’ve just talked about, how likely do you think that Russia may escalate, be it in Ukraine or even against NATO?
Howard: Well they’ve already escalated through the sabotage campaign. So the intel community is saying this sabotage in Europe, this is occurring and they’re probing us in all these areas. And then they’re seeing intelligence also of buildups on the border. So they’re just putting two and two together, and these guys like Ratcliffe and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio have said, well we’ve all along said we can work with Russia, maybe Putin’s misinterpreting us. So that goes back to the Ratcliffe visit: it’s a warning. Don’t tempt, don’t cross that red line. That’s what I think.
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IAM: You know, Burns and the previous administration did that before Ukraine and Putin didn’t listen. Do you think Putin will listen now?
Howard: I think Putin is a gambler and he likes risk. And it’s a toss-up. He may or may not, you know. He may look at the equation and say, Is it worth the risk with Trump? But the flip side is that they’ve run out of Patriots and he may see us from our military-industrial base as being weak and we’re bogged down in Iran and the Gulf.
If Ratcliffe is briefing the alliance on Monday about his visit, that says a lot. Somebody’s stepping up somewhere and there’s been a kind of change in the pecking order in the administration. That’s what I perceive.
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