The Extraordinary Adventures of an American in Russia

The plot of Eldar Ryazanov’s film “The Extraordinary Adventures of Italians in Russia” goes like this: An Italian Mafioso, who has set off for the Soviet Union in search of treasure, steals and destroys the passport of one of his competitors on the flight over, making it so that neither Moscow nor Rome will allow him in. The competitor is forced to live on the airplane and hope in vain that he will be taken in by some country, somewhere. With a keen understanding of bureaucratic absurdities, Ryazanov tried to depict how the loss of an important document like a passport can escalate into an idiotic mix-up that requires the intervention of diplomats.

Now the infamous whistle-blower Edward Snowden, who exposed American intelligence secrets, has found himself in approximately the same situation. For nearly three days, he has been in limbo in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport because he does not own an international passport.* Of course, this is merely a pretext — Russian law enforcement authorities could have already taken Snowden into custody and handed him into the paws of the American authorities or sent him to another country of his choosing. But they haven’t yet decided what to do with the elusive spy, so for now Snowden remains in the same position as that unlucky Italian who set sail for Russia to hunt for treasure.

Really, though, how should Moscow proceed in this complicated situation? The Americans, via their representatives, are suggesting that something horrible will happen if Snowden is not handed over: The Assad regime will fall, the Magnitsky list will go through the roof, Americans will sever ties with Russian oil companies that operate in the Arctic Shelf … It’s easy to believe the Russian leaders, who insist that they weren’t ready for the arrival of the runaway spy in Russia. Of course, they understand that this person’s presence in the country creates a diplomatic morass that will be extremely difficult to get out of.

The problem is not just that there is no protocol in place between Russia and the U.S. to deal with the extradition of people who have been accused of treason. The problem is that this particular extradition request, if you really think about it, was demeaning and, it’s safe to say, unprecedented. In reality, it has never occurred to any country to extradite a fugitive who has uncovered important secrets that have national security implications for the country from which extradition is being requested. The USSR never gave a second thought to handing over Kim Philby, even though he was undoubtedly a criminal and a traitor from the point of view of the British legal system. Likewise, neither the USSR nor Russia ever considered readmitting Oleg Gordievsky, whom the Soviet Union had sentenced to the death penalty in 1985, even though his wife and two daughters continued to live in the country for a long time after his flight to Britain.

In the same vein, the USSR and post-Soviet Russia never even hoped to get their hands back on Arkady Shevchenko, the undersecretary general of the U.N. who moved to the U.S. in 1976 and did effectively the same thing as Snowden on a larger scale. And, even today, no one in the Russian leadership has any anticipation that the U.S. will, in exchange for Snowden, hand over former KGB agent Oleg Kalugin who, by the way, was sentenced in Russia to 15 years behind bars for treason.

It should be clear to everyone by now that no one extradites such spies. Before now, I believe, no one has made the non-extradition of such a figure into a diplomatic scandal. For that reason, what is happening today sets an important precedent and is likely more important than Snowden’s revelations themselves. It is simply an attempt on behalf of the U.S. to create a new format for relations between itself and Russia and China — to demonstrate to these countries that, regardless of their strength, they are still second-class countries and as such are obligated to bend to the interests of the American intelligence agencies.

It’s astounding, too, that Russian liberals have joined the chorus of voices in favor of Snowden’s extradition, considering the fact that many American liberals consider Snowden anything but a national hero. I’d be cautious to exalt him as a national hero. A traitor is a traitor regardless of his admirable motives. But I do think something else deserves acknowledgement: Gutsy loners like Snowden, Assange and Daniel Ellsberg are not in a position to pose a real threat to intelligence agencies and their truly unbounded technological capabilities. As Stierlitz, who had experience with this sort of thing, said, it’s all “small change and romanticism.”**

The only way that some semblance of individual freedom can be preserved in the world is if an intelligence community is resisted by another one that is no less powerful or technologically capable, and if the person who uncovered the immoral actions of one intelligence community is taken under the wing of another.

It is not the liberals, who caution against straining relations with America over “some agent,” who are protecting liberty in the world; it is those people who assert that his extradition would tarnish Russia’s reputation, just like the extradition of the unfortunate Erich Honecker in July 1992. That extradition solidified Russia’s image in the West as a half-colonial, half-independent nation, an image that to this day is causing the Americans to exert aggressive demands on our country. Our country and our leaders will need to have a lot of courage and self-control in this situation in order to defy the West’s blackmail, which is becoming more and more brazen by the day.

*Editor’s Note: This statement was accurate at the time the original article was published. Snowden has now been at Sheremetyevo for three weeks.

**Translator’s Note: The author is referring to a character from Soviet novelist Yulian Semyonov's book series "Seventeen Moments of Spring."