Putin and Snowden

According to a media source in Moscow, President Putin has no desire to accommodate leaker Edward Snowden.

Given Snowden's apparent obsession with privacy rights and government transparency, Putin doesn't trust him. There is no guarantee that Snowden would remain silent about the FSB's widespread spying abuses, which make even the NSA's worst abuses look like child's play. (For example, the e-mails and telephone conversations of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday, were regularly hacked, even before charges were filed against him.) And once Snowden received asylum status, even Putin would have trouble taking it away if Snowden got out of hand.

The second reason Putin, a former KGB agent, is wary about Snowden is because Putin remains religiously faithful to the lifetime oath he took: Never give away state secrets. Whatever initial gratification he might have experienced when Snowden revealed U.S. government abuses was quickly replaced by a sense of disdain for Snowden, who betrayed his nation. For this reason alone, Putin clearly considers Snowden a traitor, not a hero.

Putin put it best in 2010, when he spoke of an informant who gave away 10 Russian sleeper agents operating in the U.S.: "Traitors are swine. … The lives of traitors always end badly." And this is precisely why Putin said that the sooner Snowden leaves Russia, the better.

Without Putin's blessing, swine can't feel homey in Russia.