Where Is Edward Snowden? Does He Support Russia's Ukraine Invasion?
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He's in Russia, not because he was ever particularly keen on Russian policy, but because it was a place outside of the reach of the American intelligence agencies. I expect, like a lot of Russians, he's not particularly keen on it, but the Russian system doesn't exactly put these things up for a popular vote, so neither he nor most Russians is especially well positioned to do anything about it.
It doesn't matter in the general sense. It's just a clue about how principled he is -- something that is at the core of the debate about his extradition and prosecution.
If he is genuinely anti-fascist, as he has positioned himself, then he would be highly opposed to everything about Putin.
Unfortunately I suspect he isn't free to speak out against his protectors.
In theory I think he's also eligible for Russian citizenship, so he could be issued a Russian passport (to replace his cancelled American one). That would allow him to travel to another country that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US.
It's perhaps an interesting question to ask which country someone should move to if they want to avoid extradition to the US but also speak out on global conflicts and human rights issues. Possibly it would be simplest for him to move across the border to Georgia (which has visa-free travel with Russia, for up to a year), but that might not be the ideal location to criticise Putin from.
Another alternative would be to move to Indonesia (visa-free for 30 days), which is a G20 country[0] that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US[1] (others being China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia). I'm not sure whether the Indonesian government would feel comfortable granting him refugee status, but it might be relatively uncontroversial at this stage to grant him permanent residency.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:G20_map.png
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/United_S...
I suspect the only places Snowden can avoid US prosecution are Russia, China, and North Korea. Any country with a friendly and/or economic relationship with the US has the potential to extradite him (or just look the other way as the CIA assassinates him).
Those countries could still exert pressure: work for us, give us secrets, etc. or we’ll send you back.
He presumably could also be used as a bargaining chip in some other spy/business negotiations.
I must admit that's true. Case in point:
> Although Indonesia has no formal extradition treaty with the United States, the Indonesian National Police-Bali worked with the FBI to take Pearlman into custody, and the country expelled him as "an undesirable visitor," the FBI said.[0]
So he would have to secure his permanent residency in advance, and hope that no US administration would waste any carrots or sticks on capturing someone who would be viewed by many as a political prisoner.
[0] https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2007/06/15/pearlman-arreste...