Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has publicly commented about being granted Russian citizenship.
In a tweet about the situation, Snowden said that “after years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our SONS.”
“After two years of waiting and nearly ten years of exile, a little stability will make a difference for my family. I pray for privacy for them—and for us all,” Snowden continued, including a photo of him, his wife, and two baby boys.
After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our SONS.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 26, 2022
After two years of waiting and nearly ten years of exile, a little stability will make a difference for my family. I pray for privacy for them—and for us all. https://t.co/24NUK21TAo pic.twitter.com/qLfp47uzZ4
The whistleblower had quote tweeted his own tweet from November 2020 in which he announced that he was applying for Russian citizenship.
After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our son. That's why, in this era of pandemics and closed borders, we're applying for dual US-Russian citizenship. https://t.co/cCgT0rr37e
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 1, 2020
“After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our son. That’s why, in this era of pandemics and closed borders, we’re applying for dual US-Russian citizenship,” Snowden wrote in the 2020 tweet.
Snowden’s wife Lindsay Mills, an American, is also hoping for Russian citizenship.
The 39-year-old leaker was granted asylum in Russia in 2014 after leaking a trove of documents proving that the agency was spying on Americans to journalist Glenn Greenwald.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price responded to the news by saying that Snowden should return to the US to face espionage charges, according to a report from Fox News.
“I am familiar with the fact that he has in some ways denounced his American citizenship,” Price said. “I don’t know that he’s renounced it.”
