Putin Compares Snowden to Sakharov

Putin even compared Snowden to the iconic Russian dissident and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov. “(Snowden) feels like a fighter for human rights, a new dissident to a certain degree, something like Sakharov, well, probably, of a different scale,” Putin said.

SOURCE: http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/01/snowden-claims-political-persecution-amid-confusion-over-asylum-requests/