CIA Director John Brennan paid an unannounced visit to Moscow on Wednesday and Thursday, sources told Interfax on Friday.
Russian Foreign Intelligence Service declined to confirm or deny that Brennan had been to Moscow, but senior Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told reporters in mid-May that “a contact with the director of CIA is being planned.”
According to U.S. media, Brennan was on a visit to Romania on Tuesday, and the following day an Interfax reporter saw an impressive motorcade consisting of vehicles with U.S. Embassy license numbers at Moscow’s Vnukovo 2 airport.
On Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said he had had to miss the first day on Thursday of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum as he had to stay in Moscow because of the arrival of a very important visitor.
FBI Director Robert Mueller visited Moscow early in May, shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings.
During a meeting on Monday on the fringes of a G8 summit in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, the U.S. and Russian presidents, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin reached an agreement to step up anti-terrorism cooperation between their countries, including exchanges of intelligence and coordinated operations.