Washington (AFP) – Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan visited Kiev at the weekend, the White House said Monday, amid U.S. ire over the storming of official buildings in eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian gunmen.

“We can confirm that the director was in Kiev this weekend,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said. Brennan’s visit was part of a routine trip to Europe, and any claims that it was anything other than that by Russia were “absurd,” he added.

Photo by CSIS: Center for Strategic & International Studies/Flickr