It wasn't much of a problem until Russia decided to go all-in on its "imperial ambitions" again which made it an unreliable trade partner for Germany.

Remember: it was Russia which tried to blackmail Germany by shutting down the pipelines, and that was before the Ukrainians settled the matter once and for all by blowing up Nordstream (Russia had been shutting down the gas flow indefinitely by end of August 2022 after three months of back-and-forth, and the dry pipeline was finally blown up end of September 2022).