Economic part:

• Europe clearly experienced a serious cost‑of‑living and energy shock in 2022–2023: EU inflation averaged 9.2% in 2022, with housing, water, and energy costs up 18%, pushing over 95 million people to the edge of poverty or social exclusion.(euronews.com) Natural‑gas prices in Europe were around 25× higher than two years earlier at their 2022 peak, and many residents struggled to pay energy bills, prompting governments to earmark hundreds of billions of euros to shield households and firms.(en.wikipedia.org) That’s consistent with the economic crisis for households Sacks warned about.
• However, at the macro level the EU avoided a deep recession. The European Commission’s Winter 2023 forecast described the EU economy as set to “avoid recession”, with GDP growing 3.5% in 2022 and projected to grow (slowly) in 2023–2024.(economy-finance.ec.europa.eu) ECB analysis likewise notes that the euro‑area economy merely stagnated in late 2022 and then began to recover, with unemployment at record lows, and an outgoing ECB hawk later argued inflation was beaten “without heavy economic costs”, as the eurozone avoided recession.(ecb.europa.eu) So whether there was an “economic crisis” depends on whether you focus on macro indicators (mild) or household living standards (severe).

Political part (core of his claim):

• There was visible unrest around energy prices and inflation. Across Europe in 2022, protests and strikes erupted over the cost of living and rising energy prices, with analysts explicitly warning these could fuel political turmoil.(en.wikipedia.org) In the Czech Republic, for example, ~70,000 people joined the “Czech Republic First!” rally in Prague in early September 2022, denouncing the government’s handling of the energy crisis and calling for a new gas deal with Russia and an end to arms deliveries to Ukraine.(en.wikipedia.org) That’s a concrete instance of the tension he described.
• But continent‑wide, public opinion did not turn decisively against leaders’ Ukraine policy. Multiple Eurobarometer surveys from late 2022 through 2023 show large majorities of EU citizens supporting humanitarian, financial and even military aid to Ukraine, as well as economic sanctions on Russia.(enlargement.ec.europa.eu) At the same time, strong majorities backed cutting dependence on Russian energy and accelerating the green transition, including joint gas purchasing and massive investment in renewables.(eib.org) In other words, for most citizens there was not a clean split between “basic needs” and support for the EU’s stance on Russia; they largely approved both cushioning energy prices and continuing pressure on Russia.
• EU institutions and most governments stayed broadly united on sanctions and military support, and the feared winter 2022–23 energy breakdown was avoided thanks to full gas storage, demand reduction and diversification away from Russian supplies.(rttnews.com) Although some countries (notably Hungary and later Slovakia) became more obstructionist and far‑right or populist parties gained ground in several states, this unfolded over several years and had multiple drivers beyond the immediate winter‑heating versus “proxy war” trade‑off Sacks emphasized.(en.wikipedia.org) Europe has faced growing fragmentation and war fatigue, but not the kind of acute, Europe‑wide political crisis he predicted for the energy‑crunch period.

Overall assessment:

• Sacks was directionally right that Europe would suffer serious economic and social strain from the energy shock, and there were protests in which anger over bills and opposition to sanctions/arms for Ukraine were intertwined.
• But the stronger part of his forecast—that this would crystallize into a continental political crisis pitting citizens’ basic needs against leaders “fanatically committed” to a proxy war—has not clearly materialized. Public opinion remained mostly supportive of both aid to Ukraine and energy‑security measures, and EU policy stayed largely intact through and after winter 2022–23.

Because the economic dimension supports his warning while the predicted large‑scale political rupture largely did not occur—and reasonable observers could disagree on what threshold counts as a “political crisis”—the outcome is best classified as ambiguous, rather than clearly right or clearly wrong.