MOSCOW — Brushing aside pleas and warnings from President Obama and other senior Americans,
| ...why would Vlad listen to them after all... |
Russia granted Edward J. Snowden temporary asylum and allowed him to walk free out of a Moscow airport transit zone on Thursday despite the risk of a breach in relations with the United States.
| No risk at all. Champ won't do a darned thing. He's already demonstrated that. What, we're going to boycott the winter Olympics? He'll look like Jimmuah, and even Valerie Jarrett knows that isn't a good idea. |
RussiaÂ’s decision, which infuriated American officials, ended five weeks of legal limbo for Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence analyst supposedly wanted by the United States for leaking details of the National Security AgencyÂ’s surveillance programs, and opened a new phase of his legal and political odyssey.
Even as his leaks continued with new disclosures from the computer files he downloaded, Mr. Snowden now has legal permission to live — and conceivably even work — anywhere here for as long as a year, safely out of the reach of American prosecutors.
| Already got a job offer, and not at a sushi bar... |
Though some supporters expect him to seek permanent sanctuary elsewhere, possibly in Latin America, Mr. Snowden now has an international platform to continue defending his actions as a whistle-blower exposing wrongdoing by the American government.
| The skinny little creep will continue to do what he does best, annoy people... |
In a statement issued by WikiLeaks, Mr. Snowden thanked Russia for giving him permission to enter the country “in accordance with its laws and international obligations.” He accused the Obama administration of disregarding domestic and international law since his disclosures, but added that “in the end, the law is winning.”
| Sure. Now you live in Russia, land of law. Congrats... |
White House officials indicated that Mr. Obama was leaning against his plan to meet President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow next month after the summit meeting of the Group of 20 nations in St. Petersburg, though officials stopped short of canceling the meeting outright. While American and Russian officials acknowledge the need to work together on issues of global importance, like the reduction of nuclear weapons and the war in Syria, Mr. SnowdenÂ’s case now casts a shadow over relations in the way little has since the days of cold war defections.
| In other words, Champ already knows that he's going to cave... |
“We are extremely disappointed that the Russian Federation would take this step,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said in Washington. He pointedly added that the administration was evaluating “the utility of having a summit.”
| Mr. Carney then shook his tiny fists in frustration and retaliated against the press by telling more lies... |
Mr. Putin, who spent the day at his official residence on the outskirts of Moscow, has appeared increasingly impervious to entreaties from the United States — even those directly from Mr. Obama, who called him last month to discuss Mr. Snowden’s case.
| Why should he respond, let alone care? |
Mr. Putin, who met with the president of Tajikistan, in part to discuss the impact of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan next year,
| Champ gives speeches, Vlad makes plans... |
made no public comments about Mr. Snowden on Thursday. The KremlinÂ’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said the decision had been made by immigration officials and not by Mr. Putin himself, though it is widely assumed here that any decision with such potentially severe diplomatic consequences would require approval from the Kremlin.
“It has nothing to do with the president or his administration,” Mr. Peskov said in a telephone interview.
The Kremlin seemed to dare the White House to cancel the summit meeting. Mr. Peskov said that Russia continued to prepare to hold the meetings in Moscow and would until notified otherwise. He said that Russia believed in the importance of the relationship for ensuring regional and global security, but he shifted the onus to the Obama administration. “You cannot dance tango alone,” he said.
| But you can sleep alone... |
By late Thursday night, Mr. SnowdenÂ’s whereabouts remained unclear.
He left the international transit zone at Sheremetyevo airport unexpectedly at 3:30 p.m. after his lawyer, Anatoly G. Kucherena, spent the day with officials from the Federal Migration Service. Mr. Kucherena delivered him a passport-like document issued Wednesday and valid until July 31, 2014, granting him status as a “temporary refugee” in Russia.
Mr. Kucherena, in an interview, said he would not disclose Mr. Snowden’s whereabouts, though he expected that he could make a public appearance soon. “I cannot give out details,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Snowden, 30, could still decide to seek permanent asylum in another country. According to Mr. Kucherena, he has not officially applied for permanent political asylum in Russia and could simply remain until he is able to fly elsewhere, though the logistics of that have been complicated by intense pressure from the Obama administration on countries to block his transit.
| Suppose he gets onto a Russian Aeroflot plane that's flying, with stops, to Caracas. Anyone think Champ will interfere? |
Mr. SnowdenÂ’s official arrival in Russia was broadly cheered by many here who have defended his decision to leak the secrets of American surveillance.
| Most of whom were shocked, shocked that a world power spies... |
Ivan Melnikov, a senior Communist Party member of Parliament and a candidate for mayor of Moscow in next month’s election, called him a hero. “Frankly speaking,” Mr. Melnikov said, according to the Interfax news agency, he is “like a balm to the hearts of all Russian patriots.”
| The Russian inferiority complex shines through... |
Pavel Durov, the founder of the most prominent Russian online social network, VKontakte, even invited Mr. Snowden to join his company and help create new security measures. “Snowden might be interested in working to protect the personal data of millions of our users,” he wrote.
Lyudmila M. Alekseyeva, the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group and a stalwart of the human rights movement here since the Soviet era, welcomed the government’s decision. “I am satisfied that this happened,” Ms. Alekseyeva, who met Secretary of State John Kerry in Moscow in May, told Interfax.
Although Mr. Putin has sought to avoid a personal confrontation with Mr. Obama over Mr. Snowden — calling his limbo in the airport “an unwanted Christmas present” — officials across the political spectrum have delighted in criticizing what they perceive as American arrogance and hypocrisy. Robert Shlegel, a member of Parliament in the pro-Kremlin majority party, United Russia, noted that the disclosures exposed surveillance efforts against American allies in Europe as well.
“Will Obama cancel meetings with their leaders, too?” he said.
| Depends on whether he wants to be laughed at behind his back. |
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