He didn't defect to Russia. He was on a flight that had a layover in Moscow airport, but the US revoked his passport, so he got stranded there until Russia eventually granted him asylum.
His passport was revoked while he was in Hong Kong. Somehow he was allowed to board the flight to Moscow with a revoked passport, but not the flight from Moscow.
You're arguing a red herring, and I don't know if you're doing it purposly or what. Let's set aside the technical IT details of how passport checks work, rather focus on the point: the Hong Kong and Russian authorities knew he wasn't allowed to board that plane.
So clearly there was an arrest warrant issued by US with a request to HK authorities to detain Snowden. You may choose to believe the excuse put out by HK/Chinese authorities that US government filled out the paperwork incorrectly but the State Department, and pretty much anybody I've ever read, has rejected that explanation.
For boarding and plane and clearing security and entry into Moscow, you made an absolutely ludicrous assertion that "Your passport doesn't magically cease to work after someone somewhere says it's been revoked." - Uh huh, there goes our entire security infrastructure ... Is it your contention that neither Hong Kong authorities nor the Russians were aware that Snowden's passport was revoked?
You sound like you're bending over backwards to try to prevent Snowden from being seen as what he is, a traitor to his country who defected to a geopolitical rival after stealing millions of documents (the vast majority of which have NOTHING to do with domestic espionage programs).
>He was on a flight that had a layover in Moscow airport, but the US revoked his passport, so he got stranded there until Russia eventually granted him asylum.
Not quite. As another poster stated, Snowden had his passport revoked a day before he cleared security in Hong Kong and boarded the plane to Moscow. The decision to allow him to board the plane could only have come from the top of Russian leadership. US also issued a request to detain him and again, the decision by Hong Kong and Chinese authorities to ignore this request could only have come from high up in the respective leadership chain.
His entire time Hong Kong is mired in controversy and implicates him as a defector (either planned or spur of the moment) - for example his visit to Russian consulate (with Putin himself acknowledging that Snowden met with Russian diplomats). Wikipedia has a good write-up [1].