Vladimir Putin grants Russian citizenship to the American security contractor Edward Snowden.
The former US security consultant or contractor Edward Snowden was granted Russian citizenship by president Vladimir Putin on Monday according to the degree signed by the Russian president.
There were around 75 nationals who were listed to get Russian citizenship according to the degree signed among which Edward Snowden was one of them. The degree was published on the official website of the government.
Edward Snowden was a former contractor working with the US National Security Agency and became famous for leaking top secrets and classified documents of the US government surveillance programs. Due to this, he has been running from the US government to avoid prosecution by them and has been living in Russia since 2013.
In 2013 Edward Snowden was a computer security consultant who used to work for Dell alongside the CIA after which he was hired by an NSA (national security agency) contractor named Booz Allen Hamilton. As he was working with the NSA contractor, he tried to raise many ethical concerns through internal channels but was ignored which made him a bit delusional about the program he was part of. As he was working with NSA in Hawaii, in 2013 he eventually quit his job under the US government and then flew to Hong Kong.
As he was taking shelter in Hong Kong he was approached by a group of journalists from The Guardian where he was interviewed. In that interview, he came across revealing many classified NSA documents which were published in many publications agencies after that he became an international sensation. He even made allegations against New Zealand’s GCSB (The Government’s Communication Security Bureau) and revealed their government’s domestic surveillance.
Edward Snowden was charged with espionage by the US government as he revealed many classified documents from them to which he can receive a sentence of 10 years in federal prison under criminal charges including espionage also the US officials stated that he will not be pardoned by them as what he did is betray.
As he escaped from the USA and came to Russia he was granted permanent residency in 2020 and applied for Russian citizenship without renouncing his US citizenship. Also, read How Vladimir Putin’s car attacked in an assassination attempt ?
