Ex-KGB Major Boris Karpichko told Nigel Nelson of The Mirror that spies from Russia’s SVR intelligence service, posing as diplomats in Hong Kong, convinced Snowden to fly to Moscow last June.
“It was a trick and he fell for it," Karpichko, who reached the rank of Major as a member of the KGB's prestigious Second Directorate while specializing in counter-intelligence, told Nelson. "Now the Russians are extracting all the intelligence he possesses.”
Karpichko fled Moscow in 1998 after spying on his native Latvia for the KGB and the post-Soviet FSB. The 55-year-old says he is still in contact with several of his old spy pals.
Snowden flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong on May 20, 2013 and identified himself to the world on June 9. The 30-year-old American became stranded in Moscow on June 23 after he landed with a void U.S. passport and an unsigned travel Ecuadorian document obtained by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Karpichko said that the Kremlin leaked Snowden’s planned flight to Moscow to provoke the U.S. into revoking Snowden's passport, which Washington did on June 22. Assange also advised Snowden that "he would be physically safest in Russia."
Snowden has been living under the protection of the post-Soviet security services (FSB) since at least receiving asylum on Aug. 1. Karpichko told The Mirror that Snowden lives in an FSB-controlled neighborhood in Moscow's suburbs.
"His flat is heavily alarmed to stop anything happening to him," Karpichko said. "He meets the FSB twice a week over plenty of food and drink.”
Former KGB General Olig Kalugin recently told VentureBeat that “the Russians are very pleased with the gifts Edward Snowden has given them. He’s busy doing something. He is not just idling his way through life."
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