Edward Snowden / BBC photo
Russia, Spasi- id.com - former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, got Russian citizenship from President Vladimir Putin, after nine years of leaking secrets that revealed the scale of covert surveillance operations by the National Security Agency.
Snowden, (39), escaped from the US and was given asylum in Russia after leaking the secret files in 2013, revealed domestic and international surveillance operations, which were performed by the NSA, where he worked.
U.S. authorities for years want Snowden deported to the United States to face criminal charges on espionage.
Without any comment from the Kremlin, Snowden's name appeared in Putin's decision to grant citizenship to 72 foreign births.
Snowden then released a message, basically the latest version of the November 2020 tweet, saying he wanted his family to stay together and ask for privacy.
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"After two years of waiting and almost ten years of exile, little stability will make a difference to my family. I pray for privacy for them--and for all of us."
The new tweet did not refer to the Kremlin leader's decision, but attached to Twitter 2020 where Snowden said he and his family proposed to a double Russian citizenship.
The news encouraged some Russians to joke about whether Snowden would be called to military service, five days after Putin announced the first Russian public mobilization since the Second World War to sustain an invasion into Ukraine.
"Will Snowden be recruited?" said Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the RT state media outlets and a popular supporter of Putin on her telegraph channel.
Attorney Snowden, Anatoly Kucherena, told the RIA news office that his client can't be called because he's never served in the Russian army before.
He said that Snowden's wife Lindsay Mills, who gave birth to a son in 2020, will also apply for citizenship.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said he had no knowledge of Snowden's status changes as a U.S. citizen.
"I am familiar with the fact that in some ways has blasted his American citizenship. I don't know that he left it," said Price in the press briefing.
That year the US appeal court discovered a program that Snowden revealed broke the law and that U.S. intelligence leaders who openly defended him did not tell the truth.
