Edward Snowden's residency in Russia is part of the aftermath from the global surveillance disclosures made by Edward Snowden. On June 23, 2013, Snowden flew from Hong Kong to Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport. Observing that his U.S. passport had been canceled, Russian authorities restricted him to the airport terminal. On August 1, after 39 days in the transit section, Snowden left the airport. He was granted temporary asylum in Russia for one year. On August 7, 2014, six days after Snowden's one-year temporary asylum expired, his Russian lawyer announced that Snowden had received a three-year residency permit. It allowed him to travel freely within Russia and to go abroad for up to three months.
In October 2020, after Snowden applied to renew his temporary permit, Russia granted him unlimited permanent residency. In November 2020, Snowden announced that he and his wife were applying for Russian citizenship, but that they "remain Americans, raising our son with all the values of the America we love".
2013
First contact and sequestered in the airport
Russia first received information about Snowden when he was in Hong Kong. At that time, they were told that a person who wanted to fight against human rights violations wanted to seek asylum in Russia. In 2017, during The Putin Interviews with the director Oliver Stone, the Russian president Vladimir Putin described how Russia became involved in the Snowden saga. Russia did not want to get involved because of its strained relationship with the United States which it did not wish to worsen. Thereafter they learned that Snowden was on a plane bound for Moscow, to transfer to another plane bound for Latin America. Most of this information was received through informal channels including information leaked to the press. While he was aboard the plane, his destination countries grew reluctant to allow him in, and Snowden was thus stuck in the transit area of Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport. While in the airport, U.S. authorities asked Russia to extradite Snowden. However, this was not possible as Russia had proposed a treaty on cooperation in legal matters, requiring mutual extradition of criminals, which the U.S. had not agreed upon. Further, the United States had never extradited any Russian criminal who had taken asylum in the US, hence Snowden's extradition would have been unprecedented. Snowden had not committed a crime as per Russian law.
Granted temporary asylum
Snowden left the Moscow airport on August 1 after 39 days in the transit section. He was granted temporary asylum in Russia for one year, with extensions possible. According to his Russian lawyer, Snowden went to an undisclosed location for security reasons. The White House stated that it was "extremely disappointed," and cancelled a previously scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Additionally, Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham urged President Obama to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, but House Speaker John Boehner, also a Republican, rejected that idea as "dead wrong."
In late July 2013, Lonnie Snowden said he believed his son would be better off staying in Russia, and didn't believe he would receive a fair trial in the U.S. In mid-October, he visited his son in Moscow, later telling the press that he was pleased with Edward's situation, and still believed Russia was the best choice for his asylum, saying he wouldn't have to worry about people "rushing across the border to render him." Lonnie Snowden commented that his son was living comfortably in Russia and found Moscow "modern and sophisticated." Edward Snowden's Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, announced on October 31 that his client had found a website maintenance job at one of Russia's largest websites, but declined to identify the site. Jesselyn Radack, one of Snowden's American lawyers, said she was unaware of any new job. Asked about this by The Moscow Times in June 2014, The Guardian correspondent Luke Harding claimed that "Kucherena is completely unreliable as a source. We [The Guardian] did the rounds of Russian IT companies when he made that claim last year and none of them—none of the big ones, at least—confirmed this."