Integrity whistleblower Edward Snowden, former subcontractor of the American National Security Agency (NSA), defended his decision to accept Russian citizenship on Monday, despite criticism, DPA and Reuters report, Agerpres reads.

Last week, Snowden was sworn in as a citizen of the Russian Federation and received a Russian passport, according to his lawyer Anatoli Kucerena.

„I am in Russia because the White House intentionally canceled my passport to keep me in detention,” Snowden wrote on Twitter.

„They grounded the diplomatic plane of the president of Bolivia to prevent me from leaving the country and continue to limit my freedom of movement to this day,” he added.

Snowden referred to an incident in 2013 in which the plane of the Bolivian president was forced to land in Austria because he had not received overflight rights to other European countries. The incident occurred against the backdrop of speculation that Edward Snowden was also on board the plane, which had departed from Russia.

At the end of September, Russian President Vladimir Putin granted Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden, a refugee in Russia since 2013 after leaving the US, nine years after he exposed the extent of the NSA’s secret surveillance operations.

Snowden is wanted by the US because he sent tens of thousands of documents to the press proving the extent of electronic surveillance carried out by Washington both domestically and abroad. For years, the American authorities have been wanting to bring him back to the US to face a criminal trial for espionage.

In 2020, Russia granted Edward Snowden permanent residency, which paved the way for him to obtain Russian citizenship.

Agerpres