The European oil/gas sales are a tiny fraction of $1 trillion. They were around $20 billion in 2024 and that was an increase from the prior year. Maybe $60 billion, total, since the beginning of the war (probably less). That's my whole point - the very article you cite makes perfectly clear that European spending Russian oil and gas is nowhere near $1 trillion (as do plenty of other sources of information) yet you continue to repeat the false information uncritically because you think it helps your point to do so.
I tend to share your frustration that the European countries can't just quit the Russian oil and gas cold turkey, and that revenue has surely been beneficial to Russia, but the idea that they're keeping Russia in the war is silly. (Including because that Russian oil and gas likely would have been bought by someone else, if not the European countries.) The major things that are going to make it hard for Russia to continue this war are manpower and heavy weaponry. The BBC just estimated that Russian military deaths since February 2022 are between 146k and 211k. Not including wounded, prisoners, or MIA. That's something like 2.5x-3.5x total US deaths in Vietnam, but the Russian deaths have occurred over a much shorter time period. Russia's military is depleted and demoralized. They had to bring in North Korean troops to help replace personnel losses, and those troops have been shredded. They've also had their heavy equipment (tanks, armored personnel carriers, etc) decimated - I've seen estimates over 50% - and in many cases are now relying on Soviet-era equipment. They can't easily replace that equipment, even with extra money from oil and gas sales.
Again, not once have you even attempted to grapple with the central issue with Trump's plan of appeasing Putin: appeasement of dictators with territorial ambitions does not work as a long term strategy. By definition it does not lead to a lasting peace. Putin isn't going to just stop. He's isn't going to be satisfied with a sliver of Ukraine, any more than he was satisfied with controlling Crimea or the Donbas before. He does not think Ukraine should exist as a country. He likely does not think the Baltics should exist as countries. As leader of Russia he has repeatedly invaded sovereign nations around Russia. He will continue to do so if he is rewarded for doing it. The only way to get a lasting peace with Russia is to defeat it and to reinforce the message we, along with NATO and the UN, have consistently delivered for the last 50+ years: we will not allow wars of territorial conquest anywhere in the world, and anyone who launches such a war will face the opposition of the united international community. If Russia and China perceive that we are no longer sending that message, they will feel emboldened to pursue (or continuing pursuing) the territorial wars they want to pursue.
The problem is we now have a President who doesn't understand, and has no interest in, the lessons of history. He waves away the importance of a stable world order where no one seeks to expand their own borders, through conquest or otherwise, because he in fact has the naked ambition of expanding America's borders. He sympathizes with Putin's ambition of expanding a new, modern Russian empire because he wants America to be imperialist too. You see it in his constant talking about expanding US territory to include Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, whatever.
The peace trump wants to pursue--Russian appeasement--not only will not help avert WWII, it's going to help cause it. Trump's foreign policy is lessening the US's great power role as a deterrent to imperialist ambitions, and in fact Trump's own imperialist ambitions are going to accelerate the process. To ignore this is to ignore history.
