For roughly two years, Russia has backed right-wing, pro-Moscow political parties in France, Belgium, Hungary and other European countries, financed European anti-fracking protestors, and spied on NATO, including deliberations on anti-Russian sanctions (see this report by Pasi Eronen at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies).
These moves appear strategic: to pry apart the unity of NATO, which, along with the US, Putin views as Moscow’s primary adversary; and to confine the shale revolution to the US, and thus hold back the threat to Russia’s main source of income. Other dynamics have been at play, so it’s not clear to what degree Russia is responsible, but European support for continued sanctions against Russia have weakened, and fracking has all but come to a halt across the continent.
