From an agnostic point of view, there is something worth noting: the whole world heard about the story. That really does not seem "spy-ish" to me: spying is a

From an agnostic point of view, there is something worth noting: the whole world heard about the story. That really does not seem "spy-ish" to me: spying is a game, the goal is information. In that mindset, since the whole world got the information, the straightforward explanation is: Snowden is playing for all of us. In my opinion[ * ], the only plausible scenario where Snowden is a Russian spy is: the Russians did not want the intel for themselves, they wanted it public. It probably does not make much sense that it was to undermine the USA's international image or to cleanse their own; the remaining possibility would be to play on their domestic image (saying "hey, we Russians are more libertarian than Americans"), but that seems like a bit of overkill (and a lot more subtle than what Putin used us to. [ * ] The sole alternative is: Snowden gave more info to Russia than he gave the newspapers. That would make the whole story worth becoming the next James Bond screenplay (or would have made, in a universe without Daniel Craig), and would give it a nice antique Cold-War aura; however, I fail to imagine what kind of intel could justify such a twisted plan.