Putin gives US whistleblower Snowden Russian citizenship

• Snowden has been granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin.
• Snowden’s lawyer said his client could not apply for Russian citizenship.
• He had never served in the Russian army.

Nine years after he revealed the scope of covert NSA eavesdropping programs, President Vladimir Putin on Monday gave former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden Russian citizenship (NSA).

When Snowden, 39, exposed in 2013 that the NSA, where he worked, had engaged in extensive domestic and foreign surveillance operations, he was forced to leave the country and was granted refuge in Russia.

He has been wanted by US authorities to return home for years so that he can stand trial for espionage.

Snowden didn’t respond right away after his name surfaced in a Putin edict granting citizenship to 72 people who were born abroad without any Kremlin statement.

Five days after Putin declared Russia’s first public mobilisation since World War Two to support its faltering invasion of Ukraine, the news led some Russians to humorously wonder if Snowden would be called up for military service.

Will Snowden be called to serve? Editor-in-chief of the state-run media company RT and ardent Putin admirer Margarita Simonyan wrote in a darkly humorous tone on her Telegram channel.

Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s attorney, told media that because Snowden had never before served in the Russian army, his client could not be called up.

He declared that Lindsay Mills, Snowden’s spouse who gave birth to a son in 2020, would also submit an application for citizenship.

In 2020, Russia granted Snowden the ability to live there permanently, opening the door for him to apply for citizenship.

A US appeals court concluded that year that the program Snowden had revealed was illegal and that the US intelligence officials who had publicly defended it were lying.

The disclosure of American secrets by Snowden, who keeps a low profile while residing in Russia, was wrong, but he wasn’t a traitor, according to Putin, a former head of the Russian intelligence service.