[neuronic]

Yes, but Europe chose to ignore the 2014 invasion to keep the cheap fossil fuels running and to prevent any major escalation with a nuclear power over a mere peninsula. The hope also was 'Handel durch Wandel' - 'Change through trade'.

I can only speak for Germany, but the political discussions about Crimea and Eastern Ukraine did exist for years. However, the government and opposition parties were somewhat in Russias pockets - at the very least their election was dependend on many jobs in industries across different federal states which required cheap Russian gas. Also, the German East is still fairly connected to Russia on a cultural level and this is where you would find most German opponents against NATO these days. Communities directly affected include Lubmin in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern where Nord Stream 2 is landing as well as Schwedt/Oder with the decades old PCK oil refinery that is specialized to process Russian oil (not all oil is the same) and supplied most of the German North East with fuel.

Russia has certainly funded a lot of online trolling, political actors (AfD) and disinformation to achieve their goals. For example, they tried to actively prevent Germans from switching to American LNG / fracking gas. German Angst [1] is a pretty fertile ground for disinformation. It's also what drives opposition against nuclear power, more so than the more reasonable arguments regarding economics and prices.

Regarding gas, it's mostly about heat generation for industry and NOT electricity where it is a minor player [2]. Natural gas is mostly used for manufacturing and to a lesser scale for quick up/down scaling of electricity generation as support to the baseline.

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/germans-and-why-they-worry-about-germa...

[2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE