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Russia Grants Snowden 1-Year Asylum Russia Grants Snowden 1-Year Asylum
(about 2 hours later)
MOSCOW — After a month holed up in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor wanted by the United States for leaking details of surveillance programs, has received temporary refugee status in Russia and left the airport, his lawyer said Thursday. MOSCOW — Brushing aside pleas and warnings from President Obama and other senior American officials, Russia granted Edward J. Snowden temporary asylum and allowed him to walk free out of a Moscow airport transit zone on Thursday, ending his legal limbo there after more than five weeks.
The movement from the airport’s international transit zone was a significant change in Mr. Snowden’s status for the first time since he left the United States and began leaking details of the National Security Agency’s surveillance. Russia’s decision, which infuriated American officials, significantly alters the legal status of Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence analyst wanted by the United States for leaking details of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. Even as those leaks continued, Mr. Snowden now has legal permission to live – and conceivably even work – anywhere in Russia for as long as a year, safely out of the reach of American prosecutors.
The refugee status in Russia was the first formal support from another government for Mr. Snowden, 30, and seems likely to elicit strong objections from the United States. Mr. Snowden, 30, departed the airport unexpectedly at 3:30 in the afternoon after his lawyer, Anatoly G. Kucherena, delivered to him a passport-like document issued by the Federal Migration Service on Wednesday and valid until July 31, 2014. Mr. Kucherena said he would not disclose his whereabouts, though he expected Mr. Snowden could make a public appearance soon. “I cannot give out details,” he said.
The temporary refugee status allows Mr. Snowden to move freely within the country and is valid for one year, Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer assisting Mr. Snowden with the asylum request, said in a telephone interview. Mr. Snowden left the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport alone, an airport official said, but the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks later announced that he left the airport accompanied by one of the organization’s representatives, Sarah Harrison, who apparently had remained with him since his flight began in Hong Kong in June.
Mr. Snowden has left the airport, Mr. Kucherena said, but declined to say where he had gone. “Yes, it is true he is out,” he said, but declined to disclose details. Mr. Snowden’s asylum in Russia almost certainly will sorely strain relations with the United States, where lawmakers have called for harsh retaliation against Russia, even a boycott of the Olympic Games to be held in Sochi. Although President Vladimir V. Putin and President Obama both sought to avoid a direct diplomatic clash over Mr. Snowden, Mr. Putin and other officials here made clear they would under no circumstance extradite him, despite direct appeals from Secretary of State John Kerry and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
Mr. Snowden had lived in the international transit zone of the airport since he arrived on June 23, one step ahead of an extradition request filed by the United States in his first stopover in Hong Kong. As recently as this week, American officials remained hopeful that some sort of agreement to return Mr. Snowden to the United States could be reached, according to officials in Washington and Moscow.
One of Mr. Putin’s aides, Yuri V. Ushakov, said on Thursday that Mr. Snowden’s fate was of “insignificant character” and thus would not affect relations, according to the state news agency, RIA Novosti. He added that the Kremlin was aware of reports that Mr. Obama might cancel a planned meeting with Mr. Putin in Moscow in September but had received no official notification from officials in Washington.
Mr. Putin, for his part, sent contradictory signals. He suggested early on that Mr. Snowden leave quickly and later called him an “unwanted Christmas present,” though he blamed the Obama administration for stranding him in Moscow by revoking his passport and pressuring other countries to block any efforts by him to seek exile in Ecuador, Bolivia and other Latin American countries that have said they would consider accepting him.
Mr. Snowden could still decide to seek permanent asylum in another country. According to Mr. Kucherena, he has not officially applied for permanent political asylum in Russia and could simply remain until he is able to fly elsewhere.
After Mr. Snowden’s departure from the Moscow airport on Thursday there was frenzied media speculation about his whereabouts – with one specious report that he was headed to a notorious expatriate bar known as the Hungry Duck that had in fact closed. Where he was or would stay remained unclear on Thursday evening.
Mr. Snowden’s official arrival in Russia was cheered by many here who, like those in the United States and other countries, have defended his decision to leak the secrets of American surveillance. Ivan I. Melnikov, a senior Communist Party member of Parliament and a candidate for mayor of Moscow in next month’s election, called him a hero.
“Frankly speaking,” Mr. Melnikov said, according to the Interfax news agency, “he is a also like a balm to the hearts of all Russian patriots.”
Pavel Durov, the founder of the most prominent Russian online social network VKontake, even invited Mr. Snowden to join his company and help to craft new security measures. “Snowden might be interested in working to protect the personal data of millions of our users,” he wrote.
Beyond granting the temporary refugee certificate, it was unclear whether the Russian government would play any formal role in sheltering Mr. Snowden, like providing housing, which might be seen by American diplomats as a further affront to the United States.
Mr. Snowden had lived in the international transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport since he arrived on June 23 via Aeroflot from Hong Kong, one step ahead of an extradition request filed by the United States.
For reasons that were unclear, the Russian Federal Migration Service delayed for longer than the typical week the processing of his temporary asylum application.For reasons that were unclear, the Russian Federal Migration Service delayed for longer than the typical week the processing of his temporary asylum application.
While the bureaucratic process has unfolded slowly, Russian officials, including President Vladimir V. Putin, have made clear that they have no intention of extraditing him to the United States — a position that has infuriated the Obama administration. Mr. Kucherena took pains to say that he had not helped Mr. Snowden with a place to stay outside the airport and suggested that Mr. Snowden had made his own arrangements. “Questions of his security and questions of his living arrangements, all of that is up to him,” Mr. Kucherena told the Interfax news agency. “He will take care of this himself.”
Mr. Putin has insisted that Mr. Snowden’s presence in Russia should not harm relations between the two countries, even as the White House has signaled that President Obama, amid mounting frustration, may cancel a planned summit meeting in Moscow in September. WikiLeaks posted on its Twitter account: “we would like to thank the Russian people and all those others who have helped to protect Mr. Snowden. We have won the battle — now the war.”
The United States State Department had said that any move outside the airport — signaling a formal acceptance of Mr. Snowden as an asylum seeker — would be “deeply disappointing,” but has not publicly laid out any ramifications for Russia.

Andrew Roth and Nikolay Khalip contributed reporting from Moscow, and Mark Landler from Washington.