Hundreds of supporters greeted the charismatic Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as he returned to Moscow on Saturday after his surprise release from jail and vowed to push forward with his campaign to become mayor of the Russian capital.

Navalny was sentenced to five years in prison on an embezzlement conviction on Thursday in the city of Kirov, but prosecutors unexpectedly asked for his release the next morning. They said that keeping him behind bars during the appeals process of his conviction would deprive him of his right to run for office.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has much more important matters on his hands than the fate of Edward Snowden, the U.S. intelligence leaker stranded for almost a month at a Moscow airport, the Kremlin said Friday.

"We have a lot to do. You've seen the working schedule of the president. These are much more important things than Snowden," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said Moscow's relations with Washington outweighed the "squabbles" over a spying scandal revealed by U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden, who has applied for asylum in Russia.

"Relations between states are much more important than squabbles surrounding the work of security services," Putin was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday accused the United States of trapping U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden in Moscow, saying he would leave Russia as soon as possible.

"As soon as there's the chance to move somewhere he will certainly do this," Putin said in his first public remarks since Snowden summoned several rights activists and lawyers for a dramatic meeting Friday at state-controlled Sheremetyevo airport.

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday, after the White House warned Moscow not to give fugitive leaker Edward Snowden a "propaganda platform" by granting him asylum.

The call came after Snowden said he wanted to claim temporary refuge in Russia, where he has been staying in an airport transfer lounge, until he could figure out how to reach permanent asylum in South America.

A Russian state service in charge of safeguarding Kremlin communications is looking to purchase an array of old-fashioned typewriters to prevent leaks from computer hardware, sources said Thursday.

The throwback to the paper-strewn days of Soviet bureaucracy has reportedly been prompted by the publication of secret documents by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and the revelations leaked by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that the standoff in Egypt between supporters and foes of deposed president Mohamed Morsi threatened to degenerate into a civil war.

"Syria is already in the grips of a civil war, unfortunately enough, and Egypt is moving in that direction," Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying while on a visit to Kazakhstan.

Fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden was staring at the logistical nightmare of escaping Russia for a safe haven in Latin America on Sunday after three leftist leaders offered him asylum in their states.

Bolivia on Saturday became the third country to extend an offer of asylum to the 30-year-old former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor sanctuary after similar guarantees from Venezuela and Nicaragua.

A prosecutor on Friday asked a Russian court to convict an opposition leader of embezzlement and sentence him to six years in prison.

Alexei Navalny, who led protests against President Vladimir Putin and exposed alleged government corruption, is accused of heading a criminal group that embezzled 16 million rubles ($500,000) worth of timber from a state-owned company while working as an adviser to the provincial governor in Kirov in 2009.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden was still in a transit zone at a Moscow airport and the sooner he selected his final destination the better.

"He is a transit passenger in the transit zone and is still there now.... Mr. Snowden is a free man. The sooner he selects his final destination point, the better both for us and for himself," Putin told a news conference in Finland.