Washington asked Kyiv to temporarily halt strikes on Moscow and St. Petersburg during CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Russia, a request confirmed by Ukrainian officials to multiple media outlets. CBS News reported Tuesday, Aug. 25, citing a senior Ukrainian official, that the US informed Kyiv ahead of Ratcliffe’s trip that a senior delegation would be traveling to Moscow and asked Ukraine to suspend strikes until the delegation departed.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Sources in Ukrainian government circles separately confirmed the request to Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, specifying that Washington had asked Ukraine not to attack both Moscow and St. Petersburg during the visit. CIA chief makes unannounced Moscow visit Ratcliffe arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for meetings with Russian officials, according to CBS News, Axios and other US media. CBS News said sources familiar with the situation confirmed that Ratcliffe was in the Russian capital for a series of meetings, although neither the purpose of the trip nor the officials he was meeting were disclosed. It was Ratcliffe’s first trip to Moscow as CIA director and the highest-level visit by a Trump administration official to Russia since January. His predecessor, William Burns, traveled to Moscow in November 2021, months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Burns met senior Russian officials and spoke with Putin to warn against an invasion, CBS News reported.