I share your opinions on the EU, sadly. Von Der Leyen and many others did a great job making skeptics of people like us.
However, I disagree that stopping to buy Russian fossil fuels is a great short term goal. It's not like they would ever have left it in the ground and go bankrupt as a consequence. While we buy shale oil and LNG from the US at a premium price, Russia just sells its supply to other countries, which use it to produce our food or manufactured goods. It's making us poorer and weaker but we can pretend our euros aren't buying weapons to kill Ukrainians.
We don't have natural resources, factories, armies, but at least we have the highest horse.
That is a fair point, and likely why we have not stopped buying gas from Russia. What I'm advocating for is not rash moralistic actions, but a course correction. Instead of making industry impossible in Europe and giving us no other choice than to move it to China, we need to make it easier to become independent of China.
However, I disagree that stopping to buy Russian fossil fuels is a great short term goal. It's not like they would ever have left it in the ground and go bankrupt as a consequence. While we buy shale oil and LNG from the US at a premium price, Russia just sells its supply to other countries, which use it to produce our food or manufactured goods. It's making us poorer and weaker but we can pretend our euros aren't buying weapons to kill Ukrainians.
We don't have natural resources, factories, armies, but at least we have the highest horse.