The energy squeeze on Europe: Putin’s ‘economic WMD’

Europe could face a winter of protest over soaring energy prices

Riders of the Night Wolves being welcomed by Pro-Russia Czech citizens in 2018
The Pro-Putin Night Wolves were involved in protests at Wenceslas Square
(Image credit: Michal Cizek / Contributor via Getty Images)

“A winter of protest.” That’s what Europe can expect now that Putin has turned off the gas, and energy prices are soaring, said TF1 Info (Paris). French nationalist politicians are already calling on their compatriots to take to the streets; so are German politicians on both the far-left and the far-right. In Naples earlier this month, unemployed Italians burned gas and electricity bills in a mass demonstration in the Piazza Matteotti.

But by far the largest protest has taken place in the Czech Republic, “where inflation has reached a whopping 17.5%”, said Marek Švehla in Respekt (Prague). About 70,000 people are said to have gathered in Prague’s Wenceslas Square to voice their anger at soaring energy bills, and to call for an end to the sanctions being imposed on Russia. But make no mistake, this protest is being led by extremists: by quasi-fascist politicians, by Putinesque outfits such as the Night Wolves motorcycle gang, and by minor figures from leftist parties; the kind of people, in short, who toe “an aggressive, murderous and warlike... pro-Kremlin line”.

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