One of the requirements from the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was that he write a request for a pardon from Russian President Vladimir Putin. A Thursday report dropped a bombshell that Gershkovich filled the page with comments and closed the letter with a request for an interview. Gershkovich had been in a Russian prison for nearly 500 days at that point on false charges that he was a spy. “The pro forma printout included a long blank space the prisoner could fill out if desired, or simply, as expected, leave blank. In the formal high Russian he had honed over 16 mo…