With the arrest of a Wall Road Journal correspondent on Thursday, President Vladimir V. Putin signaled to the world that he was doubling down on Russia’s wartime isolation.
Russia has expelled overseas journalists lately, however in jailing an American reporter, Evan Gershkovich, and formally accusing him of being a spy, the Kremlin took a step with no precedent because the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a stunningly provocative transfer, geared toward one of many best-known Western…