The real reason Vladimir Putin is playing this new Edward Snowden game
Why is Vladimir Putin giving Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden? There’s a tendency to assume that a villain like Putin knows what he’s doing, always has a plan, and is a step ahead of the rest of us – and that used to be true. But Putin’s moves these days are nonsensical and self defeating. So Putin may not have any strategy here at all.
There’s a popular notion on social media that Putin is doing this with Snowden to send a signal to Donald Trump that he’s welcome to flee to Russia. But if Putin truly wants the additional worldwide headache of giving Trump refuge, then Putin has become even more suicidally dumb than we thought.
And if Trump is dumb enough to think he can just magically flee the country while the Feds are monitoring him as the target of an espionage investigation, then Trump is even dumber than we thought. Attempting to flee is the one way he’d immediately get put behind bars.
So if the Snowden thing is some kind of weird dance between Putin and Trump, then it’s not some four dimensional chess. It’s not some secret evil genius strategy. It’s just two collapsing world leaders – one already out of power and the other in danger of being ousted – resorting to the delusional hope that simplistic magic wand moves will somehow magically save them from the fate they know they’re facing.
