WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 CIA Director Bill Burns met on Monday with his Russian intelligence counterpart to warn of consequences if Russia were to deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, according to a White House 好色tv Security Council official.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Burns and Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia鈥檚 SVR spy agency, did not discuss settlement of the war in Ukraine during the meeting in Ankara, Turkey. Ahead of the meeting, White House officials said Burns had also planned to raise the cases of Phoenix Mercury star and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan, two Americans detained in Russia whom the Biden administration has been pressing to release in a prisoner exchange.
The Burns-Naryshkin meeting was the highest-ranking face-to-face engagement between U.S. and Russian officials since before Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered .
The official said that Ukrainian officials were briefed ahead of Burns' travel to Turkey.
President Joe Biden, after on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, told reporters that they discussed Russia鈥檚 war in Ukraine. Biden added they 鈥渞eaffirmed our shared belief in the threat for the use of nuclear weapons is totally unacceptable.鈥
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russian state news agency Tass that the talks between Burns and Naryshkin 鈥渋ndeed took place.鈥 Peskov said that 鈥渋t was the American side鈥檚 initiative.鈥
In Turkey, a top aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed that the country hosted the meeting between the heads of the Russian and U.S. intelligence agencies on Monday. Communications Director Fahrettin Altun told The Associated Press that the meeting was 鈥渞elated to threats against international security, starting with the use of nuclear weapons.鈥
Turkey earlier this year hosted Ukrainian and Russian officials for talks and played a key role in to world markets.
Turkey鈥檚 state-run Anadolu Agency said Monday's meeting was hosted by Turkey鈥檚 intelligence agency, MIT.
Turkey "will continue to negotiate with all relevant parties for peace and shall not refrain from taking initiative during this process,鈥 Altun said.
The meeting between the spy chiefs came as the U.S. Treasury Department on Monday announced on 14 people and 28 entities involved in supporting the Russian military-industrial complex. Many of those hit with new sanctions are located outside of Russia, including people and firms based in Switzerland, Taiwan and France.
Biden also heralded the retreat of Russian forces , one of the four regions in Ukraine that Putin annexed in September.
鈥淚t's a significant, significant victory for Ukraine. Significant victory. And I can do nothing but applaud the courage, determination and capacity of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian military,鈥 Biden said.
Biden last month declared that the risk of nuclear 鈥淎rmageddon鈥 is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, as after suffering massive setbacks in the nearly nine-month invasion of Ukraine.
While U.S. officials for months have warned of the prospect that Russia could use weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine as it has faced strategic setbacks on the battlefield, Biden administration officials have repeatedly said nothing has changed in U.S. intelligence assessments to suggest that Putin has imminent plans to deploy nuclear weapons, according to U.S. officials.
The 好色tv Security Council official added on Monday there has been no change in the U.S. intelligence assessment and declined to offer further detail on timing of the decision to send Burns to meet with Naryshkin.
Putin has repeatedly , including in September as he announced plans to conscript Russian men to serve in Ukraine. Biden has sought to make clear that use of a lower-yield tactical weapons could quickly spiral out of control into global destruction.
Speaking at a conference of international foreign policy experts late last month, Putin .
鈥淲e see no need for that,鈥 Putin said. 鈥淭here is no point in that, neither political, nor military.鈥
Biden sent Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, to Moscow last fall as the U.S. intelligence community saw signs that Putin was preparing to invade Ukraine.
The CIA chief's travels are normally closely held, but the White House, as it did last year, has made the calculation that it's best that Burns' interaction with the Russian spy chief is widely known.
Before Monday, the last publicly acknowledged face-to-face meeting between senior U.S. and Russian officials took place in January in Switzerland: Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with Russia鈥檚 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Jan. 21, before Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine the next month.
Blinken and Lavrov have been in the same room for multilateral meetings since the Feb. 24 invasion, including at a G-20 foreign ministers meeting in Bali in early July and at the U.N. General Assembly, but have not had direct discussions.
They have, however, had at least one telephone conversation, which focused on a potential prisoner swap and occurred in late July. In the meantime, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley have also had phone calls with their Russian counterparts, as has national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
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Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Matthew Lee and Fatima Hussein contributed reporting.
