This is a joke, right? Assange himself admitted to telling Snowden to flee to Russia in particular, not just as a waypoint to Havana...
But yes, since 2010 or so Wikileaks has been co-opted by Russia. In October 2010 Assange had crowed that "The Kremlin had better brace itself for a coming wave of WikiLeaks disclosures about Russia" and within a month [1] was meekly "revising" his comment to state instead that "we have material on many businesses and governments, including in Russia. It's not right to say there's going to be a particular focus on Russia". And indeed, the world still has yet to figure out what Assange was talking about in October 2010.
In fact Assange has been quite close with states intertwined with Russia since then, e.g. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/03/belar... (what really boggles the mind about this article, which pre-dates Snowden, is the idea of Assange railing against "his enemies at the Guardian").
>This is a joke, right? Assange himself admitted to telling Snowden to flee to Russia in particular, not just as a waypoint to Havana...
How does this mean WikiLeaks/Assange is allied with Russia? It seems to me that it is equally (or more) plausible that Russia is powerful enough to stonewall extradition requests for American citizens in this pseudo cold war of information, and Assange may have banked on that (smaller countries may have the desire but not the political power to make it happen).
But yes, since 2010 or so Wikileaks has been co-opted by Russia. In October 2010 Assange had crowed that "The Kremlin had better brace itself for a coming wave of WikiLeaks disclosures about Russia" and within a month [1] was meekly "revising" his comment to state instead that "we have material on many businesses and governments, including in Russia. It's not right to say there's going to be a particular focus on Russia". And indeed, the world still has yet to figure out what Assange was talking about in October 2010.
In fact Assange has been quite close with states intertwined with Russia since then, e.g. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/03/belar... (what really boggles the mind about this article, which pre-dates Snowden, is the idea of Assange railing against "his enemies at the Guardian").
[1] http://www.russiaprofile.org/international/a1288285095.html <-- Want to know what changed Assange's mind?