Trump says Putin will not attack NATO territory, downplays Ratcliffe trip

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Russian ??President Vladimir Putin will not attack a NATO country, and he played down media reports that ‌CIA Director John Ratcliffe ​warned Russian officials ​against such an attack earlier in the ​week. "He's not going to attack a NATO territory," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. Earlier in the day, Trump told Axios ​in a phone interview that there would ‌be no such attack, and that Ratcliffe ​had not been dispatched to Moscow to deliver any particular message. "Ratcliffe sees his Russian counterpart once ‌every six ​months or once every ‌year. They have a very good relationship. ‌ There was ??no message and there was nothing ​unusual," Trump told the news outlet. European and US intelligence officials have long ​monitored Russian sabotage and gray zone attacks in Europe that fall below the ‌threshold of full-on war and are generally ‌aimed at weakening NATO's unity and its member states' willingness to support Ukraine against Russian aggression.