Cheap energy is great for Germany's energy intensive heavy industries, and strategically important. Russia and Germany getting cozy and growing together economically couldn't have made the US or the UK very comfortable and I believe this was at least a part of the US motivation to pull Ukraine from Russia's orbit. I mean it makes a lot more sense to me than the US actually giving a shit about Ukrainians and their freedom. It's very well played on the part of the US.

After all the point of NATO was to "keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-agenda-idUSKBN0FB06B20...