The Director of the CIA’s direct warning to Vladimir Putin after flying to Russia has been revealed.

On Tuesday, top US intelligence official John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow in a rare face-to-face meeting with the Kremlin to discuss Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

It has now been suggested the CIA chief warned Russian officials to not escalate the war by using a nuclear weapon or by targeting Kyiv’s Nato allies.

The Kremlin, in a statement issued after the meeting, said it was “too early to say if the deep crisis in US-Russia relations can be overcome”.

Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov elaborated on the visit, admitting that Mr Ratcliffe had met with Russian intelligence officials, adding that the former KGB leader was not personally in attendance at the meeting but had been briefed.

The chief Kremlin propagandist said the relationship between Moscow and Washington was tenuous despite regular communication.

“These contacts often continue even during the most difficult periods in bilateral relations. Our President, incidentally, has spoken about this,” he said.

“However, it is still too early to say to what extent this will, overall, help to steer our bilateral relations out of the profound crisis in which they currently find themselves.”

Donald Trump also acknowledged the CIA Director’s visit, describing it as “semi-routine”, claiming that speculation around the visit was untrue.

There was some optimism from the President, saying “something may come out of it”.

“We’re working very hard to get that war ended,” he told US radio host Glenn Beck in an interview.Andy Burnham, meanwhile, has been warned the UK may soon face Russian military action after his first international visit to Kyiv and meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky.

A senior source told the Daily Mail: “An attack on the UK’s defence and security infrastructure is inevitable, based on our high-profile support for Ukraine.

“Ourselves and the French are front and centre, and Burnham’s visit to Kyiv and his forthright stance will have been noticed at the Kremlin.”

And in an ominous warning, the source added: “Russia will want to make a statement, through actions rather than words.

“That could be a drone attack, or an arson attack. There are Russian sleeper cells in this country that could do either.”

In a more direct threat, former Kremlin adviser Andrei Fedorov told Britons that “sooner or later, there might be not only verbal but maybe some visible reaction from Russia towards the UK”.

When pressed on what this might look like, he said British drone manufacturing facilities could face “semi-military” action from “unknown sources”.

Russia also addressed remarks made by ousted Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who startlingly admitted Kyiv’s military was on the decline.

“I think that there’s now a turning point which will determine our future trajectory, but it looks as though we’re gradually, slowly losing,” he told Reuters.

Moscow slightly disagreed with his statement – “Ukraine is definitely losing the war,” it said in a statement.