What if they didn't stubbornly stick to a plan but instead considered all the alternatives and refurbishing a nearly run down nuclear plant wasn't the best option?

> The government commissioned a so-called “stress test” in the summer of 2022 to see whether it would make sense to let the remaining reactors run several months longer to ensure grid stability during the winter of 2022/23. It found that a limited runtime extension could make sense for supporting electricity production. Chancellor Olaf Scholz ultimately decided that the three remaining nuclear plants in the country receive a runtime extension of about three months, until 15 April 2023, to act as a backup during the crisis. The government later ruled out any further extensions and plant operators said that letting the plants run longer would not be possible from a technical point of view, even if this was desired politically.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/qa-why-germany-phasing-...

I'm always amazed when I am reminded that there is still a pipeline through Ukraine moving Russian gas to Europe.

By the time Putin started his war there were only 3 reactors left. Their run-time were extended for 3 1/2 months which apparently conserved roughly 2% of annual German gas consumption.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomausstieg#Seit_2022:_Diskus...

The reality is that a majority of Germans don't want Nuclear power. Seeing how little other countries in the west are building it seems that sentiment is pretty common.

You are absolutely right, that Russia required us (and many others) to rethink many assumptions. The German answer was to build out LNG terminals and double down on renewables.