[user104658]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

We can do things like asset freezing, throwing out diplomats, making it more difficult for Russians to enter the UK. We can say ... hey Russia, we are jolly upset about this. Will that stop them doing it again? No. Will it inconvenience them? Maybe a little. That's about it.

The world cup is being hosted in Russia so lets boycott it ..... Politics should never ever interfere with sport. So, it's a big No No. Let's show Russia how upset we are by stopping Prince William attending .... yeah that's really going to cause a seismic shock.

The bottom line is we can implement measures as a face saving exercise, but they will mean squat to anyone.

But Russia IS still a super-power and also a huge marketplace... So yeah, we could put sanctions on them, technically... Except that the UK ceasing trade would have an insignificant impact on the Russia economy, would have MORE impact on the UK economy (although to be fair still not very significant) and would basically be kicking the bear for a frankly not very good reason. I mean I know it might seem bad but every country is involved in political assassination, its naive to think otherwise. It would be different if they had assassinated a UK political figure or something but... Basically, this is just internal Russian crap that happened to spill over into a UK city. Obviously the fact that a UK police officer was collateral damage is horrendous, but again, let's not start pretending that all countries aren't guilty of causing significant collateral damage in other nations.