Edward Snowden, the former US National Security Agency whistleblower who has lived in Russia since his revelations rocked the US intelligence community in 2013, has a taxpayer identification number, Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit found.
You don’t need a passport to claim asylum. The whole story reeks tbh. He stayed in Russia because he wasn’t allowed to leave. Or because he was a Russian agent. But there are many diplomatic avenues to get from one sympathetic country to another for a legitimate asylum claim.
So you say, without providing any proof such avenues exist.
https://www.google.com/search?q=do+you+need+a+passport+to+claim+asylum
Well duh. You can apply for asylum without a passport. Now try to bridge the ~8k miles from Russia to Ecuador without one, while trying to avoid being deported to the USA, and see how far you’ll get. Best case, you’d be stuck for years in some embassy like happened to Julian Assange.
You can apply for asylum in an embassy and receive travel documents if approved. Either Russia or Ecuador could also have just put him on a diplomatic flight. Edward Snowden is not the first person who needed to cross hostile borders to claim asylum. The simple fact of the matter is that he either chose not to do so, or was not allowed to do so.