BIOGRAPHY: Putin Gives Former NSA Contractor Edward Snowden Russian Citizenship

Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship on Monday to Edward Snowden, the former security consultant who leaked information about top-secret U.S. surveillance programs and is still wanted by Washington on espionage charges. (Read More Here).

Snowden, 39, was one of 72 foreigners granted citizenship in a decree signed by Putin.

Snowden, who considers himself a whistleblower, fled the United States to avoid prosecution and has been living in Russia, which granted him asylum in 2013.

Snowden was granted permanent residency in 2020, and his lawyers said at the time that he was applying to obtain a Russian passport without renouncing his U.S. citizenship.

Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told the state-run news agency RIA Novosti on Monday that Snowden’s wife, Lindsay Mills, is also now applying for Russian citizenship. Mills joined Snowden in Moscow in 2014. They were married in 2017 and have a son together.

Kucherena also said that Snowden would not be subject to the partial military mobilization that Putin decreed last week to help Russia’s flagging war in Ukraine as Snowden never served in the Russian army. Putin said only those with previous experienced would be called up in the partial mobilization though there have been widespread reports of summonses going to others, including men arrested at protests against mobilization.

“I would like to return to the United States. That is the ultimate goal,” Snowden told CBS News in 2019. “But if I’m gonna spend the rest of my life in prison, the one bottom line demand that we have to agree to is that at least I get a fair trial. And that is the one thing the government has refused to guarantee because they won’t provide access to what’s called a public interest defense.”

He hasn’t commented on being granted Russian citizenship.

Putin last week announced a mobilization of Russian men to contribute to the army’s fight in Ukraine and Kucherena said that Snowden would not be called up to serve given he had no prior experience in the Russian army.