> Bringing Russia closer to Europe and (according to the now falsified theory) creating conditions for peace

It's not falsified. It may have improved conditions for peace; the situation could have been far worse now. Real-world issues don't work out neatly; they are extremely complex; you never know what the alternative outcome would have been.

As an analogy, eating healthy food and getting exercise isn't 'falsified' as health recommendations when someone happens to die young.

Yeah, definitely. I meant the position that it would be sufficient or decreased the probability much more than it could have (and did.) I'm actually of the opinion that it was the right thing to do and really we didn't do enough connecting the economies, bridging the cultures and elites and that's why we ended up in this situation. On the other hand, we probably shouldn't have gone that far in on gas without having done the rest of that and seeing actual results. If the long-term costs were accounted for, I think green was actually cheaper all along.

Elites who have been compensated handsomely by the Kremlin. "Useful idiots" comes to mind.