Whistleblower Edward Snowden was granted Russian citizenship after a decree from President Putin, according to a letter released by the Kremlin yesterday.
Snowden, 39, is a former CIA agent and systems officer in the National Security Agency’s Secret Service. He provided journalists with top-secret documents about covert espionage activities in 2013. He also explained how the NSA monitors online communications around the world using a computer program.
In 2013, the FBI ordered the arrest of Edward Snowden for espionage. At the time of his first discovery, Snowden was staying at a hotel in Hong Kong. When he threatened to be arrested there at the request of the United States, he boarded a plane to Moscow.
Snowden then accepted an offer of asylum from Venezuela. He was staying at the Moscow airport at the time, in the neutral transit zone. But, in part because the US withdrew her passport, the trip to South America became a problem.
After that, the whistleblower filed an application and was granted asylum in Russia. This situation became permanent in 2020. Snowden married acrobat and blogger Lindsey Mills in Moscow. In December 2020, they had a son together. At that time, neither of them had Russian citizenship.
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