Russia’s shadowy shortwave station known as UVB-76, long nicknamed the “Doomsday Radio,” erupted with an unusual burst of coded transmissions in the hours after CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s discreet trip to Moscow, according to a report from Ynet News. The activity has intensified questions about what message, if any, Moscow intended to send as Western capitals watched the visit with growing unease.
Ratcliffe’s appearance in the Russian capital this week unsettled U.S. allies already wary of any thaw between President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Trump rejected a Wall Street Journal account that the CIA chief had cautioned Russian counterparts against striking NATO.
Politico reported instead that Ratcliffe pressed Moscow to scale back its military and economic backing for Iran. Whether the talks produced any shift in Russian policy remains unclear.
What followed the visit, however, was unmistakable. The Soviet-era station that has hummed on 4,625 kilohertz since the 1970s broke its trademark monotonous buzz at least 25 times on Thursday, roughly a day after Ratcliffe’s meetings.
The interruptions carried spoken Russian words, numbers and letter combinations. Among the phrases reportedly heard were “waitress,” “spray” and “existence,” according to The Moscow Times. Kremlin-linked outlets themselves noted the spike.
The last comparable surge occurred on February 12, 2025, the day Trump and Putin held their first conversation after Trump returned to the White House. Western intelligence services have monitored the station for years, viewing it as a possible channel for military units or intelligence operatives. Its official purpose has never been disclosed.
Ratcliffe met with Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergei Naryshkin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Putin did not join the talks. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later dismissed surprise at the quiet contacts.
“The non-public nature of interaction between intelligence agencies, which traditionally work ‘quietly,’ should not be surprising,” Lavrov said. “There are rules according to which intelligence agencies interact, and there is nothing surprising about that.”
Moscow simultaneously sharpened its language toward Britain. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that Russian forces could target British military sites because of London’s support for Ukraine. “Any British military facility and equipment in Ukraine and beyond may become a target for retaliatory strikes over Ukrainian attacks using British weapons on Russian territory,” she said.
The developments have stirred particular alarm in the Baltic states. Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics sought to steady public nerves, stating that the immediate military threat assessment had not changed. “At present, the risk of a direct Russian invasion remains low. What is possible are various acts of sabotage, cyberattacks and hybrid operations,” he wrote.
The combination of a high-level CIA visit, renewed threats against a NATO member and the sudden awakening of a Cold War-era radio station has left Western governments reading every signal with heightened caution.
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