Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has joined a phone-in with Russian President Vladimir Putin, quizzing him over the extent of Moscow's surveillance activities. <\/p>\n
Putin, a former KGB agent, greeted Snowden as a fellow 'former agent' before assuring him that Russia's surveillance of the population was not on a mass scale and strictly controlled by laws. <\/p>\n
Snowden, a 30-year-old former United States National Security Agency contractor, was granted asylum by Russia last August after shaking the American intelligence establishment to its core with a series of devastating leaks on mass surveillance in the US and around the world. <\/p>\n
His location has been kept strictly secret ever since. <\/p>\n
Russians were able to submit video questions to Putin using cell phone apps. <\/p>\n
Snowden spoke against a dark background giving no clue to his location, wearing a dark suit jacket and grey shirt, looking unshaven with his hair plastered down. <\/p>\n
His Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told the RIA Novosti news agency that Snowden had recorded and submitted the video in advance. <\/p>\n
'He found out there would be a direct line with the Russian president and recorded a question,' Kucherena said. <\/p>\n
First the camera cut dramatically to a co-host who introduced Snowden as 'a person who carried out a real information revolution'. <\/p>\n
'I'd like to ask you: does Russia intercept, store or analyse in any way the communications of millions of individuals?' Snowden asked Putin in English. <\/p>\n
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