tell me more, please
Russia can only play with natural gas diplomacy to Europe to a limited extent, because Europe is their main market and they don't move much into China (the PRC gets gas for cheaper out of the Stans, so not a great market for Russia). That's why Russia uses it pretty selectively against countries that are weaker (Poland, Ukraine, the Baltics). EU could counteract this by forcing a union-wide buying cartel, rather than letting countries negotiate working with Russia individually.
EU countries have been trying to get alternate routes up and running, but Russia has been pre-empting this with some maneuvering (any plausible route would go through Turkey, Syria, or Iraq)
What do you expect a supplier to do?
https://www.wired.com/story/russian-hackers-attack-ukraine/a...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_d...
Of course EU should be seeking energy independence, as US is also an unreliable partner (see Trump).
"Russia claimed Ukraine was not paying for gas, but diverting that which was intended to be exported to the EU from the pipelines. Ukrainian officials at first denied the accusation, but later Naftogaz admitted that because of harsh winter (lower than minus 30C) some natural gas intended for other European countries was retained and used for domestic needs."
If you want to pay for it - go ahead
So they stole billions of cubic metres, and let the conflict escalate to a lawsuit. That is not paying late, that is theft.
And landlords do kick you out when you are sufficient late in paying the rent. What would you suggest otherwise? Enter a relationship therapy with them?
It's clear now that Russia just wants to destroy Ukrainian independence and its culture. And it's using any possible leverage to achieve this.
I think the current conflict between Russia and the US is pretty stupid and a remnant of the cold war that has been rekindled for some reason. 15 years ago Germany had a vastly better relation to Russia and the situation was far more stable and peaceful. Return of aggression were almost unthinkable. All this has been destroyed by diplomacy of the last decade. I don't really care if it was Putin that needed to deflect from domestic issues or NATO that dabbled to deeply in Ukraine that ultimately lead us in this situation. Fact is that the situation vastly deteriorated.
But all that should be disregarded for energy policy. To get off coal, gas is the vastly superior energy source. Still a fossil fuel, but far less dangerous. Nuclear power cannot be brought up fast enough and there are political problems too.
"US is a lot closer to Germany than Russia" - do you think that's natural, or more due to US lobby organisations such as Atlantik-Brücke ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantik-Br%C3%BCcke ) and other agents of influence?
"NATO that dabbled" - it feels like it would be more appropriate to say "US that dabbed". It was Victoria Nuland who was handing out cookies to "protesters" (and a lot of other shenanigans involving Hunter Biden, Westinghouse, selling junk vessels which point to that).
I do think the Atlantik-Brücke is a vehicle to keep people talking to each other, but I believe the general reputation of the US in the population is relevant too. You hear much criticism of the US, but that is in my opinion because of the US position of hegemony.
Maybe the "US that dabbled" is more precise but there is a longer history in that region especially relating to nuclear disarmament. Even more precise would be the Bush administration I guess.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/eu-elections-2014/video/guy...
Van Baalen ( NL ) was there too, both were EU parliament members at the time IIRC.
The US wants to sell its liquid gas. While I would prefer the US as a partner compared to Russia, this is just stupid banter and I think fracking should be minimized as a method for gas extraction (Russia and Germany do the same, although in a smaller dimension).