President Vladimir Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, 9 years after he uncovered the dimensions of mystery surveillance operations through the National Security Agency (NSA).
Snowden, 39, fled the USA and become given asylum in Russia after leaking mystery documents in 2013 that found out enormous home and global surveillance operations accomplished through the NSA, wherein he worked.
US government have for years desired him back to the USA to stand a crook trial on espionage charges.
There become no instantaneously response from Snowden, whose call seemed 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 referred to as up for navy service, 5 days after Putin introduced Russia’s first public mobilization considering 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, advised RIA information corporation that his customer couldn’t be referred to 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 practice 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 become illegal and that americaA intelligence leaders who publicly defended it had been now no longer telling the truth.
Putin, a former Russian undercover agent leader, stated in 2017 that Snowden, who continues a low profile at the same time as dwelling in Russia, become incorrect to leak US secrets and techniques however become now no longer a traitor.