FBI Director Patel arrives in Russia for meeting, sources say
The trip sits apart from the diesel and ceasefire channel that Witkoff and Kushner have been running with Moscow.
Published
FBI Director Kash Patel has arrived in Russia for a meeting, according to sources cited by MS. No detail has emerged on who he is meeting or why.
The visit lands alongside a separate, stalled track on energy and the war. Witkoff and Kushner have pitched Moscow a diesel deal meant to soften its stance, while a source close to the Kremlin has said Putin will not negotiate until Russia secures the remaining 11% of Donbas. The United States has also pressed Ukraine and European governments to stop striking Russian refineries, and has threatened to withhold arms supplies over the strikes, the Financial Times has reported. Zelenskiy has said Trump's claim of an energy ceasefire caught him by surprise, and that Ukraine will accept one only if Russia does too.
Trump has said he is working with both sides and believes Zelenskiy and Putin both want the war to end, a view his own envoys have challenged in private.
A high-level US law enforcement visit to Moscow falls outside that diesel and ceasefire track, where the Kremlin keeps calling ceasefire terms unclear. Nothing so far ties FBI-level contact to the energy or battlefield disputes driving refinery strikes and diesel futures moves, which suggests a separate diplomatic channel rather than an extension of the stalled Donbas standoff. Without more detail on the meeting's purpose, its bearing on sanctions, diesel flows or the wider negotiating stalemate is not yet clear.