Ed Snowden—Putin’s Sad Trophy

Since 2013, Edward Snowden, the private contractor turned infamous National Security Agency (NSA) leaker, has made Russia his home. Rather than face U.S. justice for his misdeeds revealing top secret NSA programs, Snowden has instead chosen to remain essentially in hiding in Russia, undoubtedly with Putin’s explicit blessing.

Snowden, who claims he never intended to flee to Russia but found himself stranded there after the U.S. revoked his passport, still has always had the choice to return. But rather than exercising that choice, Snowden has instead chosen to remain self-exiled despite the moral stakes for him growing ever-higher by the day.

In 2014, the year after Snowden was granted asylum, Putin annexed Crimea. In 2015, Boris Nemtsov, a fierce critic of Putin and his administration, was assassinated near the Kremlin. In 2016, a failed coup attempt in Montenegro had all the hallmarks of Putin, the former KGB agent, who, it’s not hard to imagine, engineered the plot to keep Montenegro from joining NATO. Far more significantly, 2016 was also the year when Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election, undoubtedly instigated from the very top. Then, in 2018, in England, Sergei Skripal, a Russian defector, nearly died (along with his daughter) after they were poisoned with Novichok, a Russian nerve agent. This attack turned out to be the forerunner of a second Novichok attack, in 2020, targeting another prominent Putin critic, Alexei Navalny. Yet despite all these malevolent orchestrations by Snowden’s beady-eyed benefactor, Snowden has stayed put—a man who ironically styles himself an advocate “for the public,” as his Twitter bio declares.

The war in Ukraine further reveals Snowden’s moral failings beyond just being an American turncoat. On Twitter, Snowden has tried to distance himself from Putin’s war. Just before it began, Snowden merely opined that Russia wouldn’t invade. But then, after Putin’s February 21st address declaring parts of Ukraine independent republics, Snowden could only offer up milquetoast: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.” Prior to the war then, Snowden apparently made no criticism nor denunciation nor protest of Putin’s coming aggression—obviously because he fears Putin’s wrath. Meanwhile however, Snowden has continued to criticize western nations’ struggles balancing citizens’ freedoms with public order, denouncing Canada’s efforts to quell the recent trucker blockades. And now, days into Putin’s invasion, Snowden, like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand, has written rather faintingly that he no longer has anything “useful” to say about the war. Really? Nothing? Nothing at all despite Russian police rounding up peaceful protestors, even children with homemade signs, as Putin stokes fears of nuclear war?

Snowden, a man who has thrown his entire lot in with the increasingly Stalin-like Putin, has, since 2013, revealed himself to be a man who loves his freedom more than any notion of freedom itself. At any point, Snowden could leave Russia and denounce Putin. Yet he sheepishly does not. So hopefully, when someday the war in Ukraine is finally resolved and negotiations commence for unwinding U.S. sanctions, our sitting president will demand Snowden’s extradition. Whether you regard Snowden as a traitor or a truth-teller (and I think my position on that is abundantly clear), there is no denying that he’s now fully sided with authoritarianism.

In September 2022, Snowden was granted Russian citizenship. The decree was signed by President Vladimir Putin himself.