News Digest

'Love is love': Snowden's girlfriend joins him in Russia

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who blew the whistle on the U.S. government’s mass surveillance programs, has been reunited in Russia with his long-time girlfriend, according to his lawyer. Lindsay Mills, a dancer who was living with Snowden when he left Hawaii for Hong Kong in May 2013, joined him in Moscow in July 2014, a documentary disclosed. Snowden’s lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told AFP that Mills does not live in Russia permanently because of visa constraints but visits frequently. The couple, who previously lived in Hawaii, have been busy exploring Russia, he added. “They go to theatres and cultural events together.”

Love is love. She lives with him when she comes here. Moral support is very important for Edward.

Snowden’s lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told AFP

Kucherena spoke after a documentary by Laura Poitras, shown at advance screenings in New York late Friday, revealed Mills had joined him in Moscow over the summer. The two-hour documentary - due for release on October 24 - paints an intimate and sympathetic portrait of Snowden holed up in a Hong Kong hotel in June 2013 as he blows the whistle on NSA dealings and then plots his escape. Mills appears in the documentary but isn’t interviewed and Snowden is reluctant to talk about personal things. There are some astonishing nuggets of information, such as his assertion that at NSA he could watch drone strikes and surveillance at anytime on his desktop - “lots of them in all these countries”.