Concerning Snowden’s problem, Dimitri Simes, head of the Center for the National Interest (immigrant from Russia in 1973, publisher of the foreign policy journal The National Interest) tried to explain why the first destination of Snowden was Russia:
“The fact that Russia is not a friend of the United States, the fact that Russia doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States, the fact that President Putin is not known to be close to President Obama and the fact that President Putin is not known as somebody who can be pushed around made Russia a logical place to consider.”
Analysts appreciated that in the Snowden’s problem for Russia is already important in the background to give to the Americans a signal about Russian’s interests about the security problem.
And most important to justify the reserved attitude of the President Putin who seems to have finally one logical argument: stealing American secrets is not a crime in Russia.
Russia’s foreign minister bluntly rejected U.S. demands to extradite Edward Snowden. His problem is at this time an international one.
