As winter approaches, Europe’s united turn away from Russian energy is beginning to bite in households everywhere, eroding living standards and in some countries threatening to chip away at the united front for sanctions against Russia.

Mario Draghi, the departing prime minister of Italy and an architect of the continent’s united line against Russia, warned as much would happen if Europe failed to reach a deal to cap prices on the alternative gas imports.

Spiraling energy costs, he said in a speech at the United Nations in September, would be something that “puts at risk the economic recovery, limits the buying power of families and damages the production capabilities of businesses.” It “can wear down the commitment of our countries toward Ukraine,” he added.That moment, it seems, is arriving as strikes and protests over the rising cost of living proliferate, ushering in a period of social and labor unrest not seen since at least the 1970s.

“We have seen this after the First World War, Second World War and also in the ’70s,” said Kurt Vandaele, a senior researcher at the European Trade Union Institute. “There were strike waves associated with a real spike in inflation.”

In Italy, the pressure is everywhere. Trade unions want the government to spend more on energy subsidies to help companies like pottery makers, who need to power their furnaces, but also farmers, who are getting slammed on the cost of fertilizers, which are produced with gas or potassium from Russia.

This week, former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who has recast himself as a populist hero of the poor in Italy’s south, announced he would join a large demonstration on Nov. 5 demanding peace for Ukraine and an end to arms shipments. Critics say he is advocating Ukraine’s surrender.

As elsewhere, the new right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni will have to struggle with how to cushion inflation’s blow without inflating already bloated deficits. Mr. Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank, has argued that running a higher deficit would spook international markets, raise interest rates and hurt Italians. Whether that can be avoided while resisting Mr. Putin and the temptation of Russian energy is the question.

While there is still general opposition to Russia, on the question of sacrificing purchasing power to support Ukraine, “public opinion is much more divided,” said Adrien Broche, the co-author of a studyshowing that only a third of the French now agree with bearing the economic consequences of the war.

Pentagon’s Strategy Won’t Rule Out Nuclear Use Against Non-Nuclear Threats

Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Citing burgeoning threats from Russia and China, the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy rejects limits on using nuclear weapons long championed by arms control advocates and, in the past, by President Joe Biden.
“By the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries,” the Defense Department said in the long-awaited document issued Thursday. In response, the US will “maintain a very high bar for nuclear employment” without ruling out using the weapons in retaliation to a non-nuclear strategic threat to the homeland, US forces abroad or allies.

Biden pledged in his 2020 presidential campaign to declare that the US nuclear arsenal should be used only to deter or retaliate against a nuclear attack, a position blessed by progressive Democrats and reviled by defense hawks. The threat environment has changed dramatically since then, and the Pentagon strategy was forged in cooperation with the White House.

The nuclear report that’s part of the broader strategy said the Biden administration reviewed its nuclear policy and concluded that “No First Use” and “Sole Purpose” policies “would result in an unacceptable level of risk in light of the range of non-nuclear capabilities being developed and fielded by competitors that could inflict strategic-level damage” to the US and allies.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has openly threatened to use nuclear weapons in his invasion of Ukraine. In the document, which was framed before the invasion, the Pentagon says Russia continues to “brandish its nuclear weapons in support of its revisionist security policy” while its modern arsenal is expected to grow further.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — NATO and Russia's military alike staged planned annual nuclear exercises Wednesday as the Russian president repeated the unfounded claim that Ukraine plans to set off a radioactive “dirty bomb.” On the battlefront, Russian forces pounded more than 40 Ukrainian villages over the past day.

Russian President Vladimir Putin remotely monitored the drills of his strategic nuclear forces, which involved multiple practice launches of ballistic and cruise missiles in a show of force. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin that the exercise simulated a “massive nuclear strike” retaliating for a nuclear attack on Russia.

The Biden administration said Russia provided advance notice of the annual drills. NATO is carrying out its own long-planned annual nuclear exercises in northwestern Europe.
Without providing any evidence, in remarks carried by Russian TV, Putin said Ukraine plans to “use a so-called ‘dirty bomb’ as a provocation” and contended the United States was using Ukraine as a “battering ram” against Russia and its regional allies, turning the country into a “testing ground for military-biological experiments.” It was the first time Putin himself made the unsubstantiated dirty bomb allegation, which his officials have been repeating since last week.Ukraine and its Western allies have denied the claims and contend that Russia, facing setbacks on the battlefield, might itself try to detonate a “dirty bomb” — which uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste to sow terror — or go further and tap its vast nuclear weapon arsenal.

US brings forward plan to update its nukes in Europe: Gravity bombs due to arrive next year will be delivered in December as Russia raises nuclear war fears

By Chris Pleasance for MailOnline09:28 EDT 27 Oct 2022 , updated 10:14 EDT 27 Oct 2022
B61-12 air-dropped gravity bombs, an updated version of America's main nuclear bomb, will be delivered to European allies this December instead of spring 2023, according to a diplomatic cable seen by Politico.