Putin says Snowden no ‘traitor’

MOSCOW: In US director Oliver Stone’s edgy new interview series, Russian leader Vladimir Putin says he believes intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is no traitor and appears to confirm multiple assassination plots have targeted him.

Excerpts released on Thursday from The Putin Interviews show the strongman president chatting from behind the wheel of a car, in the Kremlin and a country estate as the maverick three-time Oscar winner Stone listens. Stone is best known for Hollywood blockbusters inspired by American history such as JFK and Born on the Fourth of July, but has previously made films about the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan firebrand Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013.

He asks Putin whether, as a former KGB agent, he despises Snowden — who was given refuge in Russia after he initiated one of the largest data leaks in US history.

Gesticulating at the wheel of a Mercedes with an interpreter sitting behind, Putin stresses Snowden is “not a traitor” and “did not give any information to another country that would have caused harm to his people.”

Nevertheless, asked if he agreed with what Snowden did, Putin says “no.” “In my opinion, no, it’s wrong,” he says, adding that in his place he would simply have resigned.

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He says he had not seen a parallel before but that he left the KGB in 1991 because he did not agree with the government’s actions and the “attempted coup d’etat” against Mikhail Gorbachev and “did not want stay in the ranks for the intelligence services at that time.” Stone’s feature film based on Snowden’s story was released last year. The Putin Interviews is set to air on the Showtime channel from June 12.