The director of the American CIA was in Moscow. Not publicly, not with protocol - a secret visit, talks with the heads of Russia's two most powerful services, and a proposal that takes everyone back to the beginning: a trilateral meeting of Trump, Putin and Zelensky.

According to sources familiar with the talks, John Ratcliffe met in Moscow with Sergey Naryshkin, director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, and Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service. The Kremlin confirmed the contacts but stated explicitly that the CIA director had no meeting with Putin. The Russian president, according to Dmitry Peskov, was immediately informed of the results.

Note the phrasing. Not "there was no meeting" - but "he was immediately informed". That is the diplomatic way of saying the conversation reached the top anyway, just without a photograph.

The idea is not new. Neither is the answer

The Trump administration has proposed the trilateral format before. Zelensky accepted. Putin refused. That is the entire history of this proposal in one sentence, and precisely why it is worth asking what has changed now.

This time Ratcliffe's mission was not limited to passing messages. The American side was trying to establish whether the heads of the Russian intelligence services could help create the conditions for Putin to agree to resume negotiations under American mediation. That is a quiet admission that the diplomatic channel is not working and that Washington is looking for a new one - through services, not through ministries.

The bleak assessment the CIA carried to Moscow

Before that it was reported that Ratcliffe presented Bortnikov with a very bleak American assessment of Russia's position in the war, with the message that Moscow should reach a deal before its military and economic situation deteriorates further.

That is a negotiating position folded into a favour. We are telling you how badly you are doing, so sit down now. Whether Moscow reads the same assessment is another question entirely, and its behaviour so far suggests it does not.

After the meeting, according to the same sources, the CIA director judged Bortnikov to be a "constructive player" who could contribute to reviving the diplomatic process. The head of the FSB as a constructive player in a peace process - a sentence that would have sounded like parody a few years ago.

Frozen since February

American officials briefed Zelensky on Friday about the Moscow talks and the trilateral summit proposal. The Ukrainian president then publicly thanked Washington for the information and for what he called "the necessary tone of the conversation with Russia", saying the US holds a realistic view of what has to be achieved.

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine under American mediation have been effectively frozen since mid-February, after the war with Iran broke out. Half a year of silence, and now a return by way of an intelligence chief's secret visit.

When diplomacy moves out of foreign ministries and into intelligence services, it usually means the official channels stopped delivering long ago. The question that remains is whether the three chairs around that table will ever be filled - or whether the trilateral summit stays another proposal that Zelensky accepts and Putin refuses.