Edward Snowden has been living in Russia since 2013
Russia granted its citizenship to the former US Central Intelligence Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, who leaked intelligence information regarding large-scale surveillance and espionage operations conducted by US intelligence agencies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed Snowden’s naturalization decree on Monday morning.
Snowden, 39, has lived in Russia since 2013 as a political refugee, after he leaked information, including a program of the US National Security Agency (NSA), aimed at monitoring millions of American citizens.
Snowden, who faces espionage charges, has not commented in the United States.
In 2020, the US Court of Appeals ruled that the NSA’s program to spy on the communications of millions of citizens is a violation of the Constitution.
Snowden subsequently expressed his satisfaction with the ruling, which he described as fulfilling his right.
Senior US intelligence officials had asserted that the National Security Agency had not collected information about millions of citizens’ private phone calls until Snowden presented evidence against it.
After the leaks, officials said that the National Security Agency’s program played a major role in combating terrorism inside the United States, as well as helping to convict a number of people before the American judiciary on charges of aiding the Somali youth organization.
And Russian news agencies quoted Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kocherina, as saying that his client had never served in the Russian army, and therefore he would not be called up in the general and partial mobilizations taking place in the country to support the military effort in Ukraine, which Putin announced last week.
The Russian authorities said that they are seeking to mobilize about 300,000 reservists to participate in the war on the Ukrainian front, but the matter is facing widespread popular discontent.
According to information published by websites affiliated with the Russian opposition, the mobilization process could witness the recall of nearly one million people.