Why Russia won't hand over Edward Snowden

The mystery surrounding Edward Snowden's whereabouts has been cleared up. Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed Tuesday that the former intelligence contractor wanted for leaking secrets on U.S. government data mining is holed up in an international transit area in a Moscow airport. Putin dismissed Washington's demand that Russia return Snowden to face espionage charges, saying Russia had no grounds to arrest him.

Refusing to send Snowden back to the U.S. could cost Putin diplomatically. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lashed out at Moscow for giving Snowden a safe stopover en route — according to several reports — to Ecuador, where he has requested asylum. Putin, however, has several reasons to thumb his nose at the U.S.

The reason Putin gave publicly was that Snowden had committed no crime since arriving in Russia on a flight from Hong Kong. "We can only send back some foreign nationals to the countries with which we have the relevant international agreements on extradition," Putin said. "With the United States we have no such agreement."

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The Russian leader probably has other motives, too. But Andrew Ryvkin at Britain's Guardian says that the most obvious one — picking Snowden's brains for intelligence secrets — is not why Putin is holding out. After all, Ryvkin says, Moscow has its own "(albeit weaker) NSA with spies, satellites, cryptography specialists, and a general understanding of an intelligence agency's modus operandi that is far beyond that of any journalist or civilian in the U.S." What it does not have, he adds, is an abundance of opportunities to stick its finger in the American government's eye.

The Snowden case is just the latest — and, arguably, least consequential — of Putin's efforts to clash with President Obama. John Arquilla at Foreign Policy says the refusal to extradite Snowden only proves that former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney when he asserted — to widespread derision — that Russia is America's number one foreign policy foe.

Few commentators seem to think tweaking the U.S. on the Snowden affair will cost Putin much. "No one thinks the White House can or will do much apart from freezing extradition of prisoners to Russia, none of whom will be as valuable to them as Snowden is to the U.S. government," says Allahpundit at Hot Air. "As seems so often true, we have few good foreign-policy cards to play." Still, Allahpundit says, the Obama administration probably shouldn't be too upset about Putin's stubbornness.