If you recall, public support was huge for Snowden, started the Stop Spying campaign. Supposedly, he evaded capture and made it to Russia where Putin gave him safe harbor as long as he didn't leak anything else. I think Putin was just going along with public sentiment.
Now, we see that his leaks were meant to damage the NSA and was a CIA operation. Snowden is still in Russia, but basically neutered and if he tries spying on Russia for the CIA, he'll most likely be suicided. Hindsight is 20/20.