The U.K. hurt its image by delaying an inquiry for a decade into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s role in the gruesome murder, through polonium poisoning, of British citizen Litvinenko in 2006.

Litvinenko served with Putin in the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, and became a public critic of Russia’s current president as early as 1998, when Putin headed the KGB successor, warning that the agency supported global terrorism, organized crime and was engaged in contract murders.

After a London judge on Jan. 21 concluded the obvious – that Putin “probably” ordered the murder of Litvinenko – hopes that British leaders would respond quickly and strongly were soon dashed.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s early reaction emphasized the need for Russia’s help in ending the four-year civil war in Syria.

“Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within,” the 2002 book written by Litvinenko with Yuriy Felshtinsky should be required reading for Western diplomats and investors who still don’t believe Putin is an international outlaw and should be treated as one. It is a chronicle of state-sponsored murder and Kremlin support of global terrorism.

Putin’s regime has gone on to commit greater crimes, including the seizure of Crimea, the war against Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, the kidnapping of Ukraine’s citizens and complicity in the shooting down of flight MH17. Putin’s war is now responsible for the murders of nearly 10,000 people since February 2014 alone.

And the reaction from some in the West?
Forbes contributor Kenneth Rapoza on Jan. 27 summarized Western greed and ignorance with a column in which he quoted investors as salivating at low Russian stock prices.

“European investors are waiting for the day, hopefully sometime in July, when Brussels axes sanctions on Russia,” he wrote, describing Crimea as seceding from Ukraine. Had Rapoza not heard about Russia’s military invasion of the peninsula?

We are for the toughest possible sanctions against Russia, including its exclusion from the SWIFT money transfers system and travel bans on Putin and other top officials.

James Nixey of Chatham House made the correct conclusion on Jan. 25 when he wrote: “The British government needs to face the fact that Vladimir Putin’s agenda is fundamentally opposed to U.K. interests.”

Actually, Putin’s agenda is opposed to Western interests.
Nixey then calls for a mild range of new sanctions: Russian exclusion from international sporting events, pressure on Russian oligarchs with assets in London and some other measures. That’s not enough.

The U.S. declaration on Jan. 25 that Putin is corrupt and has been amassing private wealth — some say $40 billion — is welcome but overdue. The accusation came from Adam Szubin, who oversees U.S. Treasury sanctions. The official told a journalist with BBC Panorama that the U.S. government has known about Putin’s corruption for “many, many years” and: “We’ve seen him enriching his friends, his close allies and marginalizing those who he doesn’t view as friends using state assets.”

Maybe this is the start of an awakening in which Western politicians and investors finally face up to the fact that the Kremlin’s policy under Putin is to thwart democracies wherever it can.
This realization makes the need for tougher sanctions obvious and overdue.

We can only hope that the West starts treating Putin as the rogue dictator and threat to world peace that he is before more nations and more people fall victim to the Kremlin’s evil aims.