MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd December, 2022) Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who spent nearly 10 years in exile in Russia, has taken the oath and received a Russian passport, his lawyer in Russia, Anatoly Kucherena, said on Friday.
"Yes, he has received (the passport)," Kucherena told reporters.
Kucherena also said Snowden's spouse Lindsay Mills may submit an application to obtain Russian citizenship before the end of 2022 and that now she is collecting necessary documents.
The lawyer told Sputnik that Snowden speaks both English and Russian and that his children will later attend Russian kindergartens and schools.
He added that the Russian citizenship protects Snowden from extraditing him to another country because it is enshrined in the country's constitution that a Russian citizen cannot be expelled to another state.
Snowden leaked hundreds of thousands of classified documents in 2013. In addition to exposing the US domestic surveillance program, Snowden's documents also illustrated the size and scope of US spying on other nations, including routine eavesdropping on world leaders, as well as on US citizens.
Snowden fled the United States to Hong Kong and then to Russia, where he spent more than a month stranded at a Moscow airport while the US was trying to have him handed over to face a criminal trial on spying charges.
Snowden was granted asylum in Russia and received a three-year residence permit in the summer of 2014 that was extended and eventually replaced by a permanent residence permit.
