US and Russia spy chiefs discuss nuclear threat

The United States and Russia’s top spy chiefs met in Turkey for secret talks about the war in Ukraine as world leaders gathered at the G20 in Indonesia.

Bill Burns, the CIA director, and Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, met in Ankara in the first face-to-face high-level contact between Washington and Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The White House said they discussed the use of nuclear weapons, and stressed that Burns is “not conducting negotiations”.

The US has been openly calling for Ukraine and Russia to engage in peace talks after Kyiv’s victory recapturing the city of Kherson. Ukraine was briefed in advance of the Ankara meeting, the White House said. The Kremlin did not confirm or deny that the meeting was taking place.

It came as world leaders gathered for the G20 summit in Bali. The US stepped up efforts to restart diplomacy around Ukraine following Russia’s defeat in the month-long battle for Kherson.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, visited the city on the bank of the Dnipro River to watch soldiers raise the Ukrainian flag on the central square.

“This is what the Russian Federation did in our country — it showed the whole world that it can kill.”

It came as Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping gathered in Bali for the annual G20 summit, which opens today. Biden and Xi — a key ally of Vladimir Putin — agreed that nuclear weapons should never be used, including in Ukraine.

The statement will be seen as a warning to Moscow, which has in recent months publicly toyed with the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield.

There have not been any highlevel public conversations between the US and Russia since Sergei

Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Secretary, and Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, met in Geneva in January.

Biden sent Burns to Moscow in November last year to try to dissuade Putin from going ahead with his invasion of Ukraine.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretarygeneral of Nato, warned last night that the West “should not make the mistake of underestimating Russia” despite the defeat in Kherson.

— Telegraph Group Ltd