What would such support look like? I don’t have any reason to expect that the timing of the revocation would be sufficiently in his control to do that.
That’s not what I meant. Assuming that Snowden had support from the Russian state, his handlers could easily guess how long his passport would last and help him get to the right places at the right time. Nothing public proves it, but neither does the GP have grounds to be confident that Snowden really got stuck in Russia by chance.
In my estimation the most likely scenario that US authorities were envisioning is this one:
* The US State Department revokes Snowden's passport while he is in one or in transit between two foreign countries.
* If the passport is revoked while he is on the ground, Snowden is prevented from exiting the country, and is deported back to the US because the local government refuses to grant him a visa or grant him asylum.
* If the passport is revoked while he is in transit, Snowden is denied entry to his destination and denied transit back to his origin due to the revocation, his destination refuses to grant him asylum, and he is deported back to the US.
There's another angle that you appear to not be considering: The US State Department _deliberately_ revoked his passport while he was in transit to or on the ground in Russia. By doing this, they give FedGov the ability to insinuate that Snowden is (and was) a Russian agent from now until the time he leaves the country. (And given that the US will almost certainly snatch Snowden if he ever tries to leave, the man is likely to die in Russia.)
This would give them a perpetual character assassination tool, nearly free of charge.
This scenario is more complicated than the "bad timing" one, but it's no more complicated than yours.
> By doing this, they give FedGov the ability to insinuate that Snowden is (and was) a Russian agent from now until the time he leaves the country.
You're right, it cuts both ways.
To go back to ben_w's comment though, I don't think we can make any conclusions about what Snowden is or who he's loyal to; he could be a a patriotic American, a Russian agent, just a guy who wanted to disclose unethical government behavior, or a mix of these things. All seem equally plausible to me, since I don't have insider info.
Sure. Despite my assessment of him (more neutral than it may seem as I'm not a US citizen and therefore don't expect him to think of me as in "his tribe"), I don't claim special insight either.
> (Only thing there that fits is the recent demonstration of the Russian government acting like half-arsed movie plots are a good idea in real life).
A lot of papers suggested that the war incompetence was because Putin asked for support for his invasion, and the services knew their job was to get him that irrespective of reality. If there was any operation to take advantage of Snowden, it probably wasn't under such pressure, and I imagine the Russian services have some competent people that could pull it off.
