US officials and families led by President Biden celebrated the prisoner exchange that was bringing three Americans home, but Russia's leader had a victory to savor as well. President Vladimir Putin secured the release of spies, hackers, and an assassin, while seeing his long-pursued strategy succeed. "It was the biggest victory yet stemming from his willingness to violate global norms to extract what he wants from Western leaders," Robyn Dixon writes in the Washington Post. Arresting foreigners in Russia on minor or invented charges, a practice known as "hostage diplomacy," is only part of the strategy.
Other ways Putin has shown disdain for a global rules-based order, Dixon says, include invading Georgia and Ukraine, seizing territory by force, and carrying out assassinations in foreign lands. Along the way, analysts say, Putin has been emboldened by hesitant Western responses to his actions—whether to avoid upsetting diplomatic and business ties, avert escalating the situation, or other reasons. The exchange Thursday illustrates the result, even when both sides can claim victory. Such deals are way out of balance, with Russia getting people convicted of serious crimes—the most extreme example being Vadim Krasikov, who was imprisoned in Germany for the murder of a former Chechen rebel—in exchange for Western citizens being held on trivial or false charges, Dixon writes.
- Putin's media strategy: Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, is free, but Putin's intimidating message to journalists remains in effect. "Real journalism under this regime is really dangerous, and not just for homegrown media, which has been thoroughly muzzled or driven into exile," Serge Schmemann writes in an opinion piece in the New York Times. The Russian regime considers independently gathered information an attack on its authoritarian rule. One thing the world loses in this deal, Schmemann says, is Gershkovich's reporting from inside Russia. Dixon's piece can be found here, and Schmemann's is here.
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