I know.. But the point is, he's stuck there.

He had 2 choices:

• Play ball and swear his oath and suck up a little to the godfather and live happily ever after
• Kick up a stink against Putin and find himself falling out of a closed window (or, best case, being deported and spending his days in a max security prison).

It's not really like "free will" applies here :)

Whatever the lawyer said is just the minimum required decorum IMO. Just politics. The oath is probably simply required to get the passport.

Putin got to get one-over on the US and Snowden got to stay out of prison (well, in reality a really huge prison but still...). It's a marriage of convenience.