MOSCOW — Russia is likely to approve former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden’s application to continue his asylum in the next few days, a Russian migration official said Friday.

“I do not see any problem in extending the temporary political asylum,” Vladimir Volokh, head of a key advisory council to Russia’s federal migration service, told the Russian news service Interfax. “Circumstances have not changed. Snowden’s life is still in danger; therefore the Federal Migration Service has every basis to prolong his status.”

Snowden’s Russian attorney, Anatoly Kucherena, told reporters Wednesday that his client had formally applied to stay in Russia past the expiration of his current temporary asylum on July 31.

Russian authorities granted Snowden that status last summer, after the former National Security Agency contractor became stranded in a Moscow airport en route from Hong Kong to Cuba. U.S. authorities had revoked his passport.

Russia ignored initial entreaties to return Snowden to the United States last summer. Since then, relations between the two governments – now engaged in an open standoff in which the Obama administration is pushing to sanction Russia over its involvement in Ukraine’s separatist uprising and annexation of Crimea – have significantly worsened.

Copy the Story Link