At a news conference on Monday, Mr. Putin tried to thread the needle, saying Mr. Snowden was welcome to stay in Russia as long as he stopped publishing classified documents that hurt the United States’ interests. He went on to acknowledge that this was unlikely to happen.

“If he wants to go somewhere and they accept him, please, be my guest,” Mr. Putin said. “If he wants to stay here, there is one condition: He must cease his work aimed at inflicting damage to our American partners, as strange as it may sound from my lips.”

He added, “Because he sees himself as a human-rights activist and a freedom fighter for people’s rights, apparently he is not intending to cease this work. So he must choose for himself a country to go to, and where to move. When that will happen, I unfortunately don’t know.”

Mr. Putin’s comments reflected an increasingly sober view of the outcome if Mr. Snowden remains in Russia. For the second time, he took pains to say that Mr. Snowden had not been recruited by Russian intelligence — an impression that could corrode Mr. Snowden’s image as a truth-teller and drive away some supporters.

“He sees himself not as a former agent of a special service but as a fighter for human rights, a sort of a new dissident, someone similar to Sakharov, on a different scale, though,” Mr. Putin said. “But nevertheless, at his core he is a fighter for human rights, for democracy.” The reference was to the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov.