# Lavrov Says Russia Issued No Ultimatum to Washington After CIA Director's Moscow Visit

The Russian foreign minister spoke days after John Ratcliffe met intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin in Moscow, and hours after drone strikes closed two kindergartens in Yaroslavl.

- Published: 2026-08-28T05:07:20.010Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/2026-08-28/lavrov-says-russia-issued-no-ultimatum-to-washington-after-c
- Publisher: Polylog (Global desk)
- Section: geopolitics
- Sources: [Kommersant](https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/8910171), [Kommersant](https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/8910169), [TASS](https://tass.ru/politika/28052317), [TASS](https://tass.ru/proisshestviya/28052365)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow has issued no ultimatum to the United States over American involvement in Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, [Kommersant reported](https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/8910171). He also [commented on the Moscow visit](https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/8910169) of John Ratcliffe, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergei Naryshkin has confirmed took place on 25 August. In a separate part of the same appearance, [TASS quoted Lavrov](https://tass.ru/politika/28052317) saying that a growing number of people abroad now accept that the West started the conflict, while very few say Russia did.

Accounts of what Ratcliffe carried to Moscow differ. [The Moscow Times reported the visit](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/08/25/cia-director-makes-rare-visit-to-moscow-a93574) as rare and unannounced, arriving on a US military transport aircraft. [CNBC reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/27/ratcliffe-moscow-russia-nato-ukraine-iran.html) that he went to warn Russia against attacking NATO territory. The [Kyiv Independent reported](https://kyivindependent.com/cia-director-arrives-in-moscow/) that Washington asked Kyiv to hold off strikes on Moscow and St Petersburg between 24 and 26 August, and that Ukraine agreed, because American officials did not trust Russian air defences to protect the visitor.

The pause did not extend beyond the two capitals. TASS reported on Friday that [two kindergartens in Yaroslavl were closed after a drone attack](https://tass.ru/proisshestviya/28052365) on the city, about 250 kilometres northeast of Moscow. Ukraine has continued strikes on Russian refineries and logistics, and Russia has continued attacks on Ukraine's power system.

Two things are happening at once: a working intelligence channel between Washington and Moscow, and an expanding strike campaign that keeps reaching civilian-adjacent targets deep inside Russia.

## What this means

An open channel between the two intelligence services lowers the risk of an accident escalating into direct NATO-Russia conflict, the tail risk European asset prices are most sensitive to. It does not lower the cost of the war inside Russia. Each strike on a city far from the front raises domestic security spending, insurance costs and disruption at Russian airports and industrial sites, and it reduces the political ability of any Russian leader to accept a pause. The two tracks can continue together, and investors should not read the diplomatic contact as a sign the strike exchange is ending.

## What to watch

- Whether the Ratcliffe channel produces a further meeting at a political rather than an intelligence level, the first real sign talks are moving beyond deconfliction.
- The frequency of drone strikes on Russian cities away from the front, which drives internal security costs and civil aviation disruption.
- Russian refinery outages and crude export volumes, the clearest measure of whether the Ukrainian campaign is reaching Moscow's revenue rather than just its cities.