httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucRWyGKBVzo
Story highlightsFormer NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been in Russia since 2013His supporters have petitioned President Barack Obama to pardon him.
Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor, sought asylum in Russia in June 2013 after leaking volumes of information on American intelligence and surveillance operations to the media.
On Tuesday, Zakharova announced an extension of a “Couple of years” in a Facebook post that criticized former CIA acting director Michael Morell for an opinion piece he wrote suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin should consider returning Snowden to the United States as “The perfect inauguration gift” to President-elect Donald Trump.
Snowden settled in Moscow after initially traveling to Hong Kong following his 2013 public disclosure of classified information.
In August 2014, Snowden received a three-year extension to his leave to remain in Russia.
In the final weeks of the Obama administration, more than a million supporters have petitioned the White House to pardon Snowden.
The White House said Tuesday that Snowden had not submitted official documents requesting clemency.
Snowden thanked President Barack Obama in a tweet for his decision to commute the sentence of former Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of documents and videos to WikiLeaks.