Last Thursday’s prisoner exchange with the US was a rare victory for human rights in Russia. Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Vice Chairman of Open Russia and protégé of slain opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, was freed from his 25-year sentence for treason. Ilya Yashin, a liberal politician who called Vladimir Putin a ‘war criminal’ and said Russia’s wartime censorship laws were unconstitutional, saw his eight-and-a-half-year sentence terminated.