Russia said on Friday said that fugitive US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden could have his request to extend his asylum in Russia agreed within a week.

Russia said on Friday said that fugitive US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden could have his request to extend his asylum in Russia agreed within a week.

"Snowden's life is still in danger, so the Federal Migration Service has every basis to extend his status," the head of the migration service ‘s public chamber, Vladimir Volokh, said Friday, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

"It can be dealt with in the course of a week," said Volokh.

Snowden's Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said Wednesday that he had already filed a formal request to extend Snowden's one-year asylum beyond July 31.

Kucherena did not say for how long Snowden wanted to extend his stay, which status he was seeking or whether he wishes to become a Russian citizen.

Snowden has been in Russia since flying in from Hong Kong in June last year after shaking up America's intelligence establishment with a series of leaks on mass surveillance in the United States and around the world.

He could not travel onwards however after his passport was revoked, and was holed up in the  transit zone of a Moscow airport for weeks before Russia granted him a one-year refugee status.