Clearly Snowden has been useful to them, at least from a propaganda angle, and perhaps intelligence-wise as well. By now they've extracted all the value they were ever going to extract from him, and he may just be a cost center to them now, but you're absolutely right that if they wanted to be rid of him, it'd be trivial to do it.
> Clearly Snowden has been useful to them, at least from a propaganda angle, and perhaps intelligence-wise as well. By now they've extracted all the value they were ever going to extract from him
Symbols can stay valuable for a long time. A political refugee from the United States has all kinds of symbolic value, not least because we aren't willing to admit that there could be such a thing.
I was speculating for the purpose of reasoning about whether they might want to get rid of him. How could he be a cost center? I don't know -- maybe they provide security for him?
Russia is not a very free country, if they want him silent, gone, whatever it would happen.