As world leaders tried to face down Vladimir Putin, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned the time had come “to bring in some tough sanctions against the Russian regime”. The “first tranche” of measures he unveiled targeted five smaller banks and three oligarchs, but were quickly criticised by British lawmakers as underwhelming.

Johnson insisted he had weapons in reserve including “stopping Russian companies raising money on London markets or stopping them even trading in pounds and dollars”. Recent trends, however, suggest such threats carry less weight than they used to.

London has been the go-to market for Russian companies to raise money outside Moscow for the last two decades: Thirty-nine Russian companies have listed in London and raised $44bn since 2005, according to data from FactSet.