URGENT NEWS: Russia rejects US claims it harbored Edward Snowden, fugitive former US spy agency contractor

Russia has called US claims that it harbored Edward Snowden, the fugitive former American spy agency contractor "unfounded and unacceptable."

People look the passenger plane, flight SU 150 to Havana, docking to a boarding bridge at the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport on June 24, 2013. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images)

Russia has called US claims that it harbored Edward Snowden, the fugitive former American spy agency contractor "unfounded and unacceptable."

Despite media reports that Snowdon had flown to Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted he had not crossed the Russian border, USA Today reported.
Washington believes Snowdon — charged with disclosing secret US surveillance programs  — is in Moscow waiting for news of an asylum request to Ecuador.

Several media outlets have pointed out that the 30-year-old American could be in the transit transit area of Sheremetyevo airport and technically not on Russian territory, though no one has been able to confirm he is there.

Reuters wrote that he indeed flew to Russia on Sunday from Hong Kong but had not been seen in public.

He then failed to board a flight bound for Cuba on Monday afternoon.

BBC cited a source as saying that he was traveling with Wikileaks legal researcher Sarah Harrison.
Julian Assange, the anti-secrecy website's founder, said Monday that Snowden was safe, although "due to the bellicose threats coming from the US administration we cannot go into further detail at this time."

Assange was speaking via teleconference from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where Assange is holed up — he says because of US ambitions to extradite and try him for treason.

Assange said:

"We are aware where Mr Snowden is, he is in a safe place and his spirits are high." 

Meanwhile, Lavrov said US attempts to blame Russia for his disappearance were "groundless".

"We are in no way involved with either Mr Snowden, his relations with US justice, nor to his movements around the world."

Washington has already taken China to task over allowing Snowdon to leave Hong Kong, against their wishes that he be detained and handed over to US authorities for extradition.

Secretary of State John Kerry has dubbed Snowden a traitor to his country and warned both Russia and China that their relations with the US might be damaged by their refusal to extradite him.