Russia no longer murders spies: KGB veteran

I think that chances of proving are nil.

As for the image/investment issue, I believe, it has nothing to do with this. Whether West decides to get tougher with Putin or not will not depend on murdered dissident here or murdered journalist there (unless, again, Putin's complicity is proven. Then embarrassment will force some actions even if West does not desire complications).

It does not matter, in the end, how your image initially suffered. If the West decides not to confront Putin and if case is not proven, then image will recover in no time and the whole affair will be forgotten.

In meantime, one dissident with pesky investigative habits is silenced and his allies are put on notice.

On the other hand, if Putin's foreign and economic policy will prove to be to much for the west, it will not make any difference for the Russia's and Putin's image whether dissidents are killed with poison, bullet, whether high-profile or low-profile murder was. Soviets image was tarnished well before they killed that Bulgarian dissident...

Russia law on killing 'extremists' abroad - A new Russian law, adopted earlier in the year, formally permits the extra-judicial killings abroad of those Moscow accuses of "extremism". ...The overall result was to dramatically expand those defined as terrorist or extremist.

Along with those seeking to overthrow the Russian government, the term is also applied to "those causing mass disturbances, committing hooliganism or acts of vandalism".

Much more controversially, the law also defines "those slandering the individual occupying the post of president of the Russian Federation" as extremists.

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