CIA chief 's Moscow visit seen as sign of engagement

The director of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency met Russia's top security adviser in Moscow on Tuesday in talks that are viewed as a sign of heightened engagement between the two global adversaries.

William Burns, leading a delegation of US officials on a two-day visit to the Russian capital, engaged in discussions with Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, on Russian-US relations, the council's press service said.

Burns' visit to Moscow was not previously announced and the Security Council released no further details.

According to a statement from the US embassy in Moscow, Burns was traveling at US President Joe Biden's request.

For the visit, it would appear that Burns has drawn on his past roles as a senior diplomat and State Department official in addition to his current job as the US' intelligence chief.

Karen Donfried, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, joined Burns in his meeting with Patrushev.

"They are meeting with members of the Russian government to discuss a range of issues in the bilateral relationship," a US embassy spokesperson said.

The rare－but not unheard of－meetings between the head of the CIA and senior Russian security officials come amid persistent tensions between Washington and Moscow.

It was at least the fourth trip to Moscow since July by a senior US official, a sharp uptick in contact that has come in the wake of a summit between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva in June.

The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on Russia related to alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election, the poisoning of dissident critic Alexei Navalny, and cyberattacks on US interests. Russia has repeatedly denied the accusations leveled against the country.

Mutual interest sought

Still, the US does see opportunities for cooperation with Russia, in particular on arms control, and the intelligence community under past administrations has sought points of mutual interest with Moscow.

Burns, as a veteran diplomat, has rich experience in Russian affairs. He served as the US ambassador there from 2005 to 2008.

The Biden administration has maintained ongoing "open, direct and candid dialogue" with Russia on the issue of cyberattacks, Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, said at an event hosted by a think tank in Washington last week.

It's not clear whether the talks have yielded any substantive results, but officials on both sides say they have so far yielded no breakthroughs and are aimed primarily at stabilizing the relationship between the two nuclear-armed adversaries that are increasingly competing in cyberspace as well as geopolitics.

The talks were scheduled to cover arms control and cybersecurity. The US has turned over the names and other details of hackers that allegedly launched attacks on the US from Russia, and is waiting to see if the information results in arrests, The New York Times reported.