Former U.S. intelligence officer Edward Snowden, who received temporary asylum in Russia, was hired on November 1 by a major Russian website, Snowden’s lawyer in Russia, Anatoly Kucherena, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti yesterday. “Starting in November, Edward goes to work. He will work with support and maintenance of one of Russia’s largest sites. I cannot name the resource for security reasons,” added Kucherena.
The news agency believes the ex-NSA analyst works for Vkontakte.ru (VK.com), Russia’s leading social network based in St. Petersburg.
“VKontakte is the only one of the major Russian sites that did not deny hiring Snowden, according to our survey of companies,” the agency stated.
The agency questioned some of the largest Russian Internet companies, which could theoretically employ Edward Snowden. Vkontakte did not explicitly deny the possibility of Snowden’s hiring.
“I cannot comment on this information,” Georgii Lobushkin, a spokesperson for VKontakte told RIA Novosti. “This is the first time I have ever heard this. If this is the case, I have not been told,” Vkontakte technical director Nikolay Durov added.
Other companies provided more clear-cut answers.
“No, we did not conduct negotiations with him about employment,” Yandex’s press service told RIA Novosti when asked whether Snowden would work for them.
The press service of Mail.Ru Group reported that Snowden would not work for the company.
“While Snowden does not work with us, but we are always happy to welcome talented professionals to the Rambler-Afisha Group,” Alexsei Goreslavsky, the Group’s deputy director for external communications, commented.
In August, just hours after Russia granted Snowden one-year asylum, Pavel Durov, the co-founder and CEO of VKontakte, posted a message on his personal Vkontakte page that the network “will be happy to see Edward join the star team of VKontakte programmers” as a personal data protection specialist.
Durov extolled the ex-intelligence analyst for “unmasking the U.S. secret services’ crimes against the citizens of the entire world” and chided the United States for “betraying the very principles it was once built upon.”
