Snowden Still in Moscow; Russia Won't Back Down to Pressure from U.S. Government

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has been playing hide-and-seek with the U.S. government, has been reported to be in a transit zone at the Moscow Airport, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia said they had no plans to extradite Snowden to the United States earlier on Tuesday.

The Obama administration has been pressuring the Russian government to send Snowden back to the United States. But Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said Russia has no intentions of backing down to pressure from the U.S. government.

"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," said Lavrov. "There are no legal grounds for such conduct of U.S. officials, and we proceed from that."

Snowden is in a pre-immigration zone in the Moscow airport, which means he technically has not yet set foot on Russian soil. Russia has repeatedly denied helping Snowden in any way.

On Monday, it was reported Snowden had missed his flight to Havana, Cuba. He has been receiving assistance from WikiLeaks and the Ecuador ministry to get himself to Ecuador for asylum. Ecuador previously offered asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at its embassy in London.

Snowden is wanted by the U.S. for exposing details of a top-secret government surveillance program in which the government collected phone records of millions of ordinary Americans. Snowden received the information while working as a contractor at the NSA.

He is charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information, and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence, according to a federal complaint released last week.