Whistleblower Edward Snowden was given the permission to stay for another two years in Russia according to a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova.

After that period he has the legal right to become a Russian citizen according to the Russian law.

The 33-year-old Mr Snowden is wanted in the United States to face trial on charges brought under the tough Espionage Act of 1917. In 2013 he leaked thousands of classified documents revealing that the US government was monitoring private data after the September 11, 2001.

The announcement came as President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former army intelligence analyst who was convicted of leaking classified military documents to WikiLeaks.