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Snowden to come to Russia. Putin’s s decision no doubt set in motion the operation to exfiltrate
him on Aeroflot, the state-controlled airline.
We know that the Russian government acted in advance to facilitate Snowden’s trip from Hong
Kong. Without such an intervention, it would not be possible for an American without an entry
visa to Russia, or, for that matter, any other country to check-in and board an Aeroflot flight to
Moscow. Aeroflot had to be instructed to allow Snowden on the plane without a visa. We also
know that a special operation was mounted to take Snowden off the plane once it landed in
Moscow. Such an operation could not have been done without advance planning. Nor would he
be removed from the plane without a plan for his stay in Russia. Since Putin himself has taken
credit for authorizing Snowden’s trip to Russia, there is no reason to doubt that these plans, and
whatever cover stories were deemed necessary, were approved at the highest level of the regime.
When an intelligence service makes such elaborate preparations for extracting a foreign
intelligence worker, it presumably also expects to debrief him or her on arrival. Pelton, for
example, who had access to far less valuable information than had Snowden, was held
incommunicado in Vienna for two weeks during his debriefing. What would be inconceivable
would be for an intelligence service to go to such lengths to bring a potential espionage source
such as Snowden to Russia and allow him to catch the next plane to Latin America. The false
report provided to the press that Snowden was flying to Latin America was likely nothing more
than a cover story to confuse foreign observers while he was receiving his initial debriefing and
evaluation.
When it comes to the esoteric enterprise of reconstructing the work of U.S. signals intelligence,
military as well as civilian experts in cryptology, computer sciences and communications are
necessary. Unlike in the case of Pelton, Snowden had secret material in his possession, at least
according to Anatoly Kucherena. Even if Russian intelligence had already acquired copies of his
electronic files prior to Snowden’s arrival in Moscow, Snowden’s interpretation of them would be
part of the debriefing since intelligence data needs to put in context. “This debriefing could not be
done overnight,” according to a former high-ranking officer in the GRU, the Russian military
intelligence service. “There is no way that Snowden would not be fully debriefed,” he said. He
also said GRU specialists in signal intelligence would be called in.
We know that the Putin regime paid a significant price in terms of the cancellation of the pre-
Olympics summit with Obama. Having to accept the onus of declining relations with the Obama
administration, it is hard to believe that it didn’t attempt to get the bonus of signals intelligence
from Snowden. The GRU, SVR and other Russian intelligence services would not be denied the
opportunity to y question Snowden until to all they had squeezed out of him whatever state
secrets he had or knew during the 38 days that he had vanished from public sight. Since
Snowden was rewarded with sanctuary, a residence and body guards, there is no reason to doubt
that he satisfactorily accommodated his interrogators. While he might elect to continue believing
that he a whistle-blower true to his ideals, as far as Russian intelligence was concerned, he was an
espionage source. /
For an intelligence service, the game is not over when it obtains state secrets. It still needs to
fog over the extent of its coup, as far as possible, to prolong the value of the espionage. Hence it
is plausible that the story that Snowden had thoroughly destroyed all his data he stolen the prior
month prior to departing for Russia as well as the story that he had turned down all requests to be
questioned by the FSB and other Russian intelligence officials were part of his legend. The
repetitions of these uncorroborated claims in his press interviews also may have enhanced his
public image for the ACLU effort to get clemency for him. Even so, in view of the importance of

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