Russian President Vladimir Putin granted Russian citizenship to former US intelligence official Edward Snowden on September 26, 2022.
The Russian government has signed a decree granting Russian citizenship to 75 foreigners, including Snowden. The CIA analyst is now a Russian citizen after almost 10 years of residing in the country. Although Edward Snowden did not renounce his US citizenship, his passport was revoked by US authorities.
In 2013, Snowden revealed the extent of electronic surveillance by the US secret service NSA. On the run, he was stranded at an airport in Moscow with a cancelled US passport and applied for asylum in Russia, where he has lived ever since. In 2020, Russia granted Snowden permanent residency. And in late 2020, he confirmed that he and his wife filed for Russian citizenship to avoid a possible separation from their son.
US authorities have been demanding for years that he return to the United States to face criminal charges of alleged espionage. Snowden himself has refused to return for years because he fears he will not receive a fair trial there.
