Opinion: Putin has been humiliated - he just doesn’t know it yet

Ignore the pessimists: this prisoner exchange numerically and qualitatively favours the West. Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, who courageously reported on Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine, will be a fearless truth-teller about Russia’s descent into totalitarianism. Russian opposition figures Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin will assume the torch left by Alexey Navalny, who tragically perished in February. The image of these heroes arriving in Western capitals contrasts sharply with the criminals that President Vladimir Putin welcomed back to Moscow. Rarely has the good and evil dichotomy been this stark and apparent for the whole world to see.