It is quite a weird situation if you think about it for a moment, the European Union was feeling way woo comfortable by becoming the number one client of Russia in terms of gas importations and consumption, they did not care for a long time when the fact Putin was getting more and more militaristic against a Democratic republic like Ukraine, take for example the clashes we all saw from the year 2014 in Ukraine and the effort of separatists funded by the Kremlin to take over Crimea from Ukraine, in spite of all that, the Russia gas continued to flow to the heart of Europe (Germany) and distributed from it.
Nowadays politicians of Europe are seeking for new alternatives of energy to withstand winters and secure their people with warmth during December and January, had they acted sooner, it would have been a smoother transition for them to gas and oil from other countries which do not live under a military and autocratic regime like the one in Moscow.