In our tour of today's newspapers, we start in Moscow, where The Independent tries to solve the mystery of the CIA director's secret visit to the Russian capital, and the Washington Post asks about the true cost of the war on Iran, and finally, in The Guardian, we learn about Generation Z's changing relationship with work and money.
Starting with the article in the British newspaper The Independent, where writer Peter Frankopan discusses the mysterious visit made by the Director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, to Moscow, considering that its explanation may not lie in Washington’s fear of Russia, as much as it is related to its concern about the extent of the seriousness of the situation facing Moscow itself.
Ratcliffe arrived this week at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow, on board a US military plane that originally departed from Andrews Base near Washington, passing through Riga in Latvia. The visit was not announced in advance, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that he had no information about it, which raised widespread speculation about its reasons.
Among the hypotheses put forward is that the visit was linked to the war on Iran, perhaps with the aim of requesting Moscow’s help in pushing Tehran towards a settlement that would allow the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, or to warn Russia about its close relations with Iran.
Another hypothesis has also emerged that the Trump administration seeks to distance Moscow from Beijing as part of a broader strategy to contain China and prevent the formation of a “new world order” hostile to Washington.
More disturbing speculation has been that US intelligence may have detected Russian preparations to move against a third country, perhaps in the Baltic region, with the aim of testing NATO, confusing Europe and diverting attention from Ukraine.
According to this scenario, Ratcliffe would have gone personally to warn Moscow that Washington was aware of these plans, and to confirm that the United States would confront any additional Russian aggression.
But the writer says that information emerged after Ratcliffe's return indicating a different purpose for the visit. The CIA director met with the head of the Russian Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, and, according to the article, conveyed to him a harsh message about the reality of the situation facing Russia.
According to Frankopan, Washington is concerned that the circle around Vladimir Putin is transmitting to him only the information he wants to hear. Therefore, Ratcliffe's goal may have been to convince Bortnikov to show the Russian president the real picture, whether on the battle fronts or inside Russia, where long-range Ukrainian missile and drone strikes caused significant damage to facilities such as refineries and warehouses.
The writer believes that Russia and Ukraine do not occupy a high position among the priorities of the Trump administration, but there is a very important exception: the possibility of an internal collapse in Russia. Moscow possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
From this standpoint, the article suggests a different interpretation of the visit: Washington may have gone to Moscow not because it fears Putin's growing power, but because it believes that his situation is more fragile than it appears.
Ratcliffe may have offered his Russian counterpart a way out, warning that failure to reach an agreement soon with Ukraine could lead to unexpected and huge repercussions.
The article, signed by the editorial board of the American newspaper The Washington Post, believes that the real cost of the American war on Iran is not limited to direct losses, but rather includes its increasing impact on the readiness of the American army and its ability to confront other threats.
The article points to indications of the pressures on US military capabilities, including the long deployment periods of soldiers, the impact on their morale, and the decline in stocks of some important weapons.
In an article in the British newspaper The Guardian, writer Alice Lassman believes that talking about “financial nihilism” among Generation Z, that is, the tendency to search for quick and unconventional ways to achieve gains, is not enough to understand the ongoing transformation in young people’s relationship with the economy, proposing the concept of “productive nihilism.”
