Russian newspaper warns FBI Director Kash Patel to 'come bearing gifts' ahead of visit

A Russian newspaper has warned FBI Director Kash Patel about what he should do when he visits the country in October. Patel’s sensitive trip to Vladimir Putin’s homeland comes as the U.S. and Russia have been unable to come to an agreement on ending the ongoing war in Ukraine.

According to The Daily Beast, Kremlin-friendly newspaper The Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote in one of its pieces that Patel should come to Russia bearing gifts, and prepare to “act as a mediator”. The paper also asked, “What do we get in return?”

The report included a quote from political analyst Vladimir Vasiliev, from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Arbatov Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies.

“It’s assumed that Russia has some kind of dirt on the Democrats. We could provide it, in one form or another, to the American side,” Vasiliev said, according to the outlet.

The political analyst is firmly in the Kremlin’s pocket and works with Sergei Lavrov’s Russian International Affairs Council. Lavrov has been a top diplomat at the Kremlin since 2004, while Vasiliev often tows the official line in Russian state-controlled media.

Vasiliev then reportedly added, “At the same time, the Americans might also have something to share, seeing as the Russian side could ask, ‘What do we get in return?’ or inquire, ‘What do you have to say about this or that issue?’ What’s stopping the FBI director from acting as a mediator or, say, a liaison officer?”

“Two months is a long time with a lot of things possible. We’ll just have to wait and see,” Vasiliev concluded in the piece.

Patel’s visit to Russia was first announced in July earlier this year, as peace talks with U.S. have inevitably hit a wall while Putin continued to place maximalist demands on Ukraine.

A U.S. official familiar with the travel plans told Politico that Patel’s visit is scheduled for Oct. 14-15, during which he plans to stop in Moscow and then St. Petersburg. It is unclear whether the FBI director will meet with Putin or any of the top Kremlin figures, and the host is likely to be the FSB, the heir to the Soviet-era KGB, according to the official.

The visit will come a year after Trump himself met with Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, last August.

It has been over a decade since a U.S. FBI director visited Russia on a public visit. The last to do so was Robert Mueller in 2013, who served under George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Mueller was later appointed as a special counsel during Donald Trump’s administration to investigate the link between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russia, along with general efforts by Russia to interfere in U.S. elections.