Because Ukraine needs Europe's help to defend itself. And cutting gas off from Europe, hurts Europe as much as it hurts Russia.
Given that many European nations have already sanctioned Russia and have communicated publicly the desire for regime change in the Russian Federation, the continued payment for Russian gas is simply bewildering from the standpoint of consistency.
In what sort of insane world do you directly fund the nation who you want to lose a war?
Well the only reason you are perplexed is because you don’t grasp basic economic reality that suddenly shutting off the gas would destroy the economies of Europe.
Europeans themselves have said so.
If they have some years they can adapt and substitute in an imperfect fashion, but you do it at once and it’s catastrophic. Also coal does not really substitute everything gas is used for, there are a lot of industrial uses you can’t just readily replace gas with.
Also Europe isn’t all on the same page on sanctions as much as you might guess, despite them wanting to keep up appearances.
Not inconsistent at all. Germany depends on Russia for more than 50% of its natural gas supply. Shutting it off immediately without any alternate supply and the lack of infrastructure to accept supplies from other sources would devastate the German economy, the largest in Europe. Domestically, the political blowback would be unacceptable to the current leadership. And there would be a ripple effect throughout Europe.
It will take years to wean Germany off of Russian natural gas. That is called reality.