RIO DE JANEIRO, December 23. /ITAR-TASS /. Edward Snowden is “grateful for the opportunity to live in freedom and participate in a major global debate” that he has “thanks to a year of political asylum guaranteed by Russia”. This the former US intelligence officer said in an interview at the online TV show “Fantastico”, aired Sunday night on the Brazilian TV channel Globo.

“I have a lot of time for reading, I have been closely following the developments in the world,” Snowden answered to the question about how he lives Russia. He said that he “mastered Russian language enough to wish Merry Christmas”.

Ex-employee of NSA and CIA stressed that he doesn’t regret having disclosed secret data about the work of US intelligence. This could have provided journalists with up to 200,000 secret documents, NSA sources say.

“Important first step”