Wasn't the strategy to exploit the European dependence on gas a failure then though because especially Germany didn't really put up a fight against the sanctions to keep using the cheap Russian gas.

One can argue about how "painless" it was, but I would have thought that stopping Russian gas imports within a few months would cause a recession and a lot more havoc in the economy. And I always assumed that was what Russia was counting on, Germany's dependence and thus tacit support but I didn't see much of that.