Snowden welcomed by Russia – but did Russia have a choice?

[99th_Monkey]

Edward Snowden has been welcomed by Russia – but it had little choice
To leave Snowden languishing in Sheremetyevo airport indefinitely would have dented the Kremlin's credibility
by Natalia Antonova * Friday 2 August 2013 08.52 EDT * The Guardian

(snip)

With Snowden, the Kremlin did the moral thing – and the moral thing also happened to be the only thing the Kremlin could do in this instance. Essentially denied safe passage to Latin America, Snowden was marooned, and letting him languish in Sheremetyevo indefinitely would have dented the Kremlin's credibility at home and abroad.

In recent years, Moscow has excelled at snubbing Washington over anything it could, but the Snowden situation was different from the start. It prompted unusually cautious words from Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, who said that Snowden could remain in Russia provided he would do no more damage to the US government, which Putin referred to as the Russian government's partner.

Other prominent members of the government have pointed out that Russia was left with little choice in the matter. The head of the State Duma committee on international affairs, Alexei Pushkov, said: "Even though Obama said that he wouldn't ground a plane over some '29-year-old hacker', they trapped Snowden after they grounded the Bolivian president's plane."

"Any other decision would have meant that Russia would lose face," deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov told Kommersant. "If we didn't give Snowden asylum, no one would take us seriously – and the Americans would be the first to do this."

Whole Article: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/02/edward-snowden-russia-little-choice

[KoKo]

1. Interesting read from this American in Russia's perspective. Liked these two

quotes from the end of the article:

I don't believe that Snowden did any significant damage to my government and its efforts to thwart terrorism – I believe my government damaged itself when it decided that some agencies could simply do as they pleased.

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Snowden appeared at the exact time that the US government needed to look at the top of its game on the international scene. This is why he won't be forgiven in a hurry.