Important New Details Emerge in Snowden’s Flight

Kommersant reports some very interesting new details regarding Edward Snowden’s flight from Russia:

• While in Hong Kong, he approached the Kremlin for support and even stayed in the consulate for a few days there.
• Supposedly, they didn’t want to keep him, just shuffle him elsewhere, and it was America’s decision to interfere with his travel plans after landing in Russia that essentially trapped him there.
• Snowden apparently arrived at the consulate on June 21, the same day the U.S. canceled his passport.
• Interestingly, Snowden was apparently interested in traveling to Cuba, but Cuba declined to accept him.

Max Seddon over at Buzzfeed has a good summary of the report, with a few more details I’ll be highlighting later. But here is my takeaway:

Russia and Wikileaks were working together to shelter Edward Snowden far earlier than they’ve admitted.

The true importance of that conclusion has yet to play out, but for me at least it dramatically changes the game.