Following his meeting with Ratcliffe: Putin signed three secret decrees
On 25 August, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signed three secret decrees which were not published on the Russian Federation’s legal information portal.
According to Censor.NET, this is reported in an article by The Moscow Times.
According to the Russian legal information portal, on the same day Putin also signed three public decrees numbered 608, 609 and 610. Two of them concerned the replacement of the Russian ambassador to Iraq, whilst the other related to the composition of commissions dealing with matters concerning people with disabilities and veterans.
However, the most recent decree published, signed by Putin on 24 August, is numbered 604. This means that documents numbered 605, 606 and 607 have not appeared on the portal.
Three decrees remain classified
This came against the backdrop of an unexpected and unannounced visit to Moscow by the Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Retcliffe. His trip marked the first visit by a CIA director to Russia since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Whilst in Moscow, Ratcliffe met with Putin. For the sake of this meeting, the Russian dictator cancelled one of his scheduled engagements, for which, according to Kremlin pool correspondent Alexander Yunashov, hundreds of people had been preparing.
No official details have been released regarding the content of the conversation between Putin and the CIA director.
Retcliffe’s visit: what is known about the possible topics of discussion
Earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that John Retcliffe may have brought a warning to Putin. This could have been linked to US intelligence reports about a possible new wave of mobilisation in Russia and a likely provocation against NATO.
Meanwhile, the British publication The iPaper links the CIA director’s trip to Moscow to a possible prisoner exchange.
In February, with the involvement of the CIA, 63-year-old American teacher Mark Fogel was released from a Russian prison. Previously, journalist Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, who had been convicted in Russia on espionage charges, were also released.
Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for International Relations, arrived in Moscow at the same time as Retcliffe.
