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A trip by the CIA director to Moscow this week was to warn Russia against any attack on Nato member states, US media reported, after Donald Trump attempted to downplay the visit.

The Wall Street Journal and CBS News reported CIA director John Ratcliffe aimed to dissuade Russia from attacking Nato members amid US intelligence assessments that Moscow could seek to test the alliance. Ratcliffe was reported to have flown to Moscow on a government transport plane on Tuesday, taking off from the Andrews air force base in Maryland.

Interviewed by the conservative radio host Glenn Beck, Trump poured cold water on speculation that Ratcliffe had travelled in response to fears that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was planning to “test Nato resolve” or to win Moscow’s cooperation for intensified US sanctions on Iran.

“None of the above,” the US president said in response to Beck, who referred to the speculation as “crazy”. “He’s there, you know, very sort of semi-routine. I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end,” Trump said.

“John Ratcliffe is a fantastic guy. He’s the head of the CIA, and he is not in there for any of the things that you said. Now something may come … out of it. We’re working very hard to get that war ended, and frankly, they both want to see it ended at this point.”

Ratcliffe is one of the highest-ranking US officials to visit Russia since its war with Ukraine started in 2022.

Sergei Naryshkin, the head ⁠of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, confirmed ⁠that he had ⁠held ​a “working-level meeting” with Ratcliffe in ⁠Moscow and that they had discussed unspecified ⁠and sensitive matters falling within ​the remit of ‌their respective ‌intelligence services. Naryshkin claimed the fact ‌that they had met was nothing unusual.

The Kremlin added that “scare stories” have nothing to do with reality, in response to the reports.

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In other developments:

• Two dozen mainly Democratic‑led states filed a fresh lawsuit to block Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail voting in this year’s midterm elections.

• Lawyers for Lisa Cook wrote to the White House on Wednesday, rejecting a new attempt to force the Federal Reserve governor to resign for allegedly listing two properties as her primary residence on mortgage applications. The letter goes on to detail the numerous other individuals who have made the same mistake on mortgage forms, starting with Trump.

• The chief spokesperson for the US Secret Service and two other communications staffers are under investigation for “potential misconduct” and have been suspended, according to the agency and media reports.

• A geography professor alleges in a lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Manhattan that he was fired from his tenured position at the US Military Academy at West Point “because he taught that humans influenced climate change”.

• The US army announced on Wednesday that it has awarded to $2.2bn to five contractors “to own, construct and operate nuclear microreactors on military installations” in five states.