The outrage felt by many in the West in the face of increasing Russian aggression and the trails of blood and tears has led to some absurd, knee-jerk, excessive, and excessively impotent gestures of solidarity. 

Much emotional energy has been wasted, for example, on irrational boycotts, such as recent calls to ban the Russian world number one tennis player Daniil Medvedev, or that of the famous New York establishment, the Russian Tea Room, which was actually opened by anti-communist dissidents escaping Stalinist Russia.