CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met at Shannon Airport in Ireland

CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met on Monday at Shannon Airport in Ireland while their planes were being refueled for the journey to the United States. The information was confirmed to The Hill by a person familiar with the meeting and had previously been reported by Reuters.

The meeting was brief, and the source provided no details about the topics discussed. Ratcliffe was returning to the United States after meeting on Sunday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, during which they discussed issues including the war with Iran, intelligence cooperation, the situation in Gaza, the civil conflict in Sudan, and developments in Somalia.

Zelensky was traveling to New York to attend meetings with international leaders organized as part of the UN General Assembly. His plane took off on Monday afternoon from “Ștefan cel Mare” Airport in Suceava, according to Monitorul de Suceava. According to sources, the choice of this route may have been prompted by fears of new Russian drone attacks and the repeated intrusion of unmanned aircraft into the airspace of the Republic of Moldova.

The meeting in Shannon comes after Ratcliffe reportedly traveled to Russia last month, where he allegedly held talks with officials from the Kremlin’s intelligence agencies. Subsequently, reports emerged that he had warned Moscow about the possibility of an attack on NATO member states.