US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s unannounced trip to Moscow last week was a routine effort to preserve communication channels between US and Russian intelligence agencies. In an interview with Fox News Radio broadcast Wednesday, Sept. 2, Rubio framed Ratcliffe’s visit as intended to continue developing “intel-to-intel” contacts with Russia.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “Those things can prove useful in a time of crisis or conflict,” Rubio said according to Bloomberg. Secretive trip to Moscow CBS News reported the visit, citing sources familiar with the matter after a US Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military transport plane landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport. The US aircraft – identified as RCH4555 – departed Riga at around 8:50 a.m. before landing at Vnukovo Airport at roughly 10:04 a.m., raising questions due to the flight’s unusual route. Flight-tracking data indicated that the aircraft first arrived in Riga on Sunday, Aug. 23, after departing from Camp Springs, Maryland, home to Andrews Air Force Base. Neither Moscow nor Washington commented on the purpose of the visit, or publicly identified the US official who arrived in Russia at the time. “We have no information about this,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the aircraft, adding that Russia was not planning meetings with the US administration.