President Vladimir Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, 9 years after he uncovered the size of mystery surveillance operations with the aid of using the National Security Agency (NSA). Snowden, 39, fled the US and turned into given asylum in Russia after leaking mystery documents in 2013 that found out full-size home and worldwide surveillance operations achieved with the aid of using the NSA, in which he worked. US government have for years desired him lower back to the US to stand a crook trial on espionage charges.
There became no instantaneously response from Snowden, whose call regarded with out Kremlin remark in a Putin decree conferring citizenship on a listing of seventy two foreign-born individuals. The information triggered a few Russians to jokingly ask whether or not Snowden might be known as up for army service, 5 days after Putin introduced Russia’s first public mobilization because World War Two to shore up its faltering invasion of Ukraine. “Will Snowden be drafted?” Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-leader of the country media outlet RT and a vocal Putin supporter, wrote with darkish humour on her Telegram channel.
Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, informed RIA information company that his purchaser couldn’t be known as up due to the fact he had now no longer formerly served withinside the Russian army. He stated that Snowden’s spouse Lindsay Mills, who gave beginning to a son in 2020, might additionally observe for citizenship. Russia granted Snowden everlasting residency rights in 2020, paving the manner for him to attain Russian citizenship. That yr a US appeals courtroom docket determined this system Snowden had uncovered became illegal and that americaA intelligence leaders who publicly defended it have been now no longer telling the truth. 3 Comments Putin, a former Russian undercover agent chief, stated in 2017 that Snowden, who maintains a low profile whilst dwelling in Russia, became incorrect to leak US secrets and techniques however became now no longer a traitor.
