CIA Director Bill Burns is leading a delegation of senior US officials in Moscow for a two-day series of meetings with Russian officials, a US embassy spokesperson said, writes CNN.

“They are meeting with members of the Russian government to discuss a range of issues in the bilateral relationship”, - the spokesman said, but did not offer details.

Among those meetings, Burns met with the head of Russia’s national security council, Nikolai Patrushev. A terse statement from Russia’s powerful Security Council said that the two sides discussed “Russian-American relations”. The meeting was not previously announced and the CIA, which as a matter of policy does not discuss the director"s schedule, declined to comment.