Putin gives ex-NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden citizenship amid sky-high tensions between the US and Russia

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Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship to US whistleblower Edward Snowden on Monday, according to a decree published to a government website. The move comes amid historic tensions between Washington and Moscow.

Snowden — a former National Security Agency contractor — has been living in Russia for nearly a decade and was granted permanent residency in 2020.

In 2013, he leaked highly classified documents about the US government’s mass surveillance to journalists at the Guardian and Washington Post. Snowden, who was charged with espionage over the leak, fled the US. He was ultimately granted asylum in Russia.

Snowden remains a controversial figure in the US. Some have characterized his actions, which revealed vast surveillance operations both in the US and abroad, as a patriotic move that helped reveal government overreach. But others have decried Snowden as a traitor. 

In 2020, Snowden applied for Russian citizenship but underscored that he was not moving to renounce his US citizenship. At the time, he tweeted, “After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our son. That’s why, in this era of pandemics and closed borders, we’re applying for dual US-Russian citizenship.”

“Lindsay and I will remain Americans, raising our son with all the values of the America we love, including the freedom to speak his mind. And I look forward to the day I can return to the States, so the whole family can be reunited. Our greatest wish is that, wherever our son lives, he feels at home,” Snowden said.

Snowden gaining Russian citizenship has raised questions as to whether he could be conscripted into Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine. 

State Department Spokesperson Ned Price on Monday told reporters that the US government’s position on Snowden has not changed, calling for the ex-NSA contractor to return home to “face justice.” Price added that perhaps the only thing that has changed as a result of Snowden gaining Russian citizenship is that “apparently now he may well be conscripted to fight in the reckless war in Ukraine.”

Putin recently announced a partial military mobilization, calling up 300,000 reservists, as the war in Ukraine rages on. Russia has suffered major troop losses in Ukraine, and is struggling with significant manpower issues. 

But Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti that Snowden can’t be drafted under Putin’s decree because he never served in the Russian military before, the Guardian reported.