Just 5 years ago Europeans were laughing in derision when this was pointed out.

Which is sadly how it goes -- you have to be willing to take a stand against people without capital-V Vision sometimes. They'll only ever perceive what's right in front of their eyes, and only ever believe that what's possible is what's already recently happened (and nothing more).

Totally unrelated but now I wanna jab my elbow at Ariane 6 (rocket)...

Not all of Europe. The immediate neighbors were always wary of Russia's game, but attempts to bring that up only got them labeled as rusophobic.

The immediate neighbors collected transit fees for Russian gas and oil. Ukraine itself collected transit fees for gas deliveries to Austria until very recently.

The Drushba pipeline through Poland was open at the same time that Sikorski congratulated the U.S. for blowing up Nord Stream. It remained open long after that. Both France and the U.S. were buying uranium from Russia until 2024. No complaints from Sikorski about that.

Nordstream was owned by Russia, Germany, France, and The Netherlands. There was a pipeline from the German terminal to Britain.

There are many hypocrites of the first order in the oil/gas game. In the context of this submission, it is appropriate to note that so called "far right" or "far left" parties are the only ones who point out facts like the above in public.

Voters notice this and blaming Russian interference is a very weak game that endangers the democracies in the EU.

> The immediate neighbors collected transit fees for Russian gas and oil. Ukraine itself collected transit fees for gas deliveries to Austria until very recently.

What else were they supposed to do? Block transit altogether and alienate their partners?

Yeah, it was so frustrating.

Some guy from Eastern Europe: "You don't know Russians. Let me tell you about my experience with them..."

Some guy from Western Europe: "LOL, I see you believe American propaganda completely uncritically."

The guy from EE: "What? No, I was telling you what happened to my family..."

The guy from WE: "Let's talk about how America sucks instead."

Seems to me that for many people Russia wasn't even a real country, just some boogeyman that American propaganda made up. Then they suddenly woke up, and now they are like "oh no, we must not escalate!". Guys, you don't even know that making concessions to Russia is the fastest way to escalate. (You didn't expect North Korean soldiers attacking a European country, did you? That's what you get for your non-escalation. There will be more.)

Imma be honest, I was pretty convinced by the "if we have strong trade relations where it's almost codependent, they will not try stuff". That was probably wrong, but we were also way more dependent on them than the other way around...

None of us were laughing in derision. If we were laughing its because we knew we were fucked.

> The worst thing Europe did was get addicted to cheap Russian gas.

True, it was really bad for us to be able build a decent industry and export all over the world. Much better to be addicted to expensive USA gas and let our industry and economies crumble.

Actually much better to leave perfectly functional nuclear power plants online so you don't have to pick one vs the other.

And who's Europe largest and closest supplier of Uranium?

You can't change geography, Europe doesn't have raw resources, Russia has tons of them. We're destined to have a close commercial relationship.

> closest supplier of Uranium

Dp you understand how energy-dense Uranium is? You can power a 1GW nuclear reactor for a week with a carry-on suitcase full of pellets. The proximity is utterly irrelevant.

It's also not even necessary! Uranium was discovered on the Czechia / Germany border and there are still many reserves there! Europe only stopped mining it in 2016!

And yet, even the USA imported 27% of its uranium from Russia until last year.

The entire world is based on cooperation even with nations one may not like. China, for instance, is the manufacturing backbone of the world - to say nothing of being the primary source of many critical elements, such as those used in electric batteries, solar, and so on.

And war between the US and China will also happen as soon as China moves to reintegrate Taiwan, and the EU will again be expected to work as a tool of the US, to its own detriment.

Will you then say that the EU should have done away with cheap Chinese manufacturing and resources earlier? And claim it was some sort of a Trojan Horse? Or will at some point the EU consider putting EU interests first?

I think Merkel thought that if pay Putin fairly, he will learn it is better to cooperate, everybody wins. EU addicted to gas, but make Putin addicted to money. It seems that Putin was not this kind of rational.