It's worse than that. ICANN won't even take the very minor diplomatic steps taken globally in every other sector that, while not cutting .RU out of the root, would still help to enforce an isolation that in aggregate may help bring the country to change its path. ICANN could deny registration of Russian nationals to ICANN meetings or participation in ongoing policy activities, or even take the miniscule step of refusing to subsidize their travel. Hell, it still won't take action on the rogue .SU domain after all these years. And ALAC is quite fine with such inaction, it's had plenty of time to consider options to support community isolation while still keeping the data flowing.

But here, in the mindset of all or nothing, both ICANN and ALAC have actively chosen nothing. Pathetic.

Of course there is one more scenario that nobody here will like. As I like to remind people, there is no international treaty governing ICANN and the IANA "transition" was bullshit, so ICANN remains subject to US (and as we saw in the case of .ORG, California) authority. It would not surprise me at all if forcing ICANN to cut off Russia remains a back-pocket option of the US State Department as an enhanced sanction (now that they've already cut off Russian caviar). ICANN's refusal to do ANYTHING only encourages and legitimizes such action, but its low external respect guarantees that nobody outside the bubble will fight for it.

- Evan