Russia grants citizenship to anti-surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden

(The AEGIS Alliance) – Edward Snowden, an anti-surveillance whistleblower, and an implicated spy have been approved for Russian citizenship as of Monday, a decree that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed reveals.

The past NSA professional is one of 75 foreign nationals who were granted Russian citizenship by Putin’s pen marking itself.

Edward Snowden has been a resident of Russia since 2013 when he escaped to the country following his leaking of classified files that uncovered the mass monitoring of American residents through the United States’ own intelligence agency.

Snowden’s request to obtain a Russian passport was approved, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

In 2020, Snowden pointed out he’d be looking to get dual Russian and United States citizenship alongside his spouse, an American named Lindsay Mills. The married couple’s boy, birthed later on in 2020 inside Russia, has Russian citizenship.

Russian regulations don’t demand potential passport owners to relinquish their previous citizenship, and there isn’t a sign that Snowden has.

Snowden that encounters U.S. espionage charges has mentioned earlier that he will come back to the nation if he feels he will get a reasonable trial.

Jeffrey Childers – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.