Litvinenko was when I realized that nation states only play by rules when it suits them and break them when they can get away with it. Putin can get away with murdering individuals or invading Crimea without any major repercussions. The US and Europe can extradite and jail spymasters (if the independent can assert Assange was a journalist I can assert he's a spymaster).

I don't find this situation to be black and white, I personally want Assange extradited and brought to trial. I'm sorry that Chelsea isn't cooperating.

Realpolitik: He played a game that regular people shouldn't participate in and after a decade he's experiencing the repercussions.

If his releases had been more even-handed towards Russia or he had not tried so hard to damage Hilary Clinton I may think he was some goodhearted neutral observer that just wants the truth out there, but it looks to me like he wanted to leverage the information he had to achieve desired outcomes (just as a spymaster at a nationstate agency would).