Andrei Macsut
Russia uses various methods of influence to interfere with European countries’ politics. Romania, as a country located in Central-Eastern Europe became an arena where Russian and EU’s policies clash. The fragile sympathy Romanians held towards Russia vanished with the outbreak of the full scale war in Ukraine. However both state and local Romanian authorities act rather slowly, when it comes to addressing foreign interference and other, domestic problems of democracy.
Andrei Macsut in his policy paper describes economic ties Russia holds on the Romanian energy market pointing out a major, state-level corruption scandal involving Russian Lukoil.
The author draws attention to a drastic increase of distrust of Russia in Romanian society. However, Kremlin’s disinformation efforts are being intensified, creating the narrative that is gaining resonance according to which Romania is being played by the EU. In such a way, the Kremlin is fuelling far right Eurosceptic Romanian political movements.
The text encloses the operatives of the far-right and Russia- favourable parties as well as the figures of Călin Georgescu, who won the first round of Romanian presidential elections in November 2024 and Diana Șoșoacă, an actively pro-Russian leader of S.O.S Romania party. The author refers to the 2024 presidential elections too, giving examples interference of Russia supporting the presidential campaign of Georgescu and recent parliamentary elections, in which the far-right parties secured altogether a significant amount of seats.
Russian interference is currently being discovered in numerous publications, advertisements and in actions of local influencers promoting anti-Western values and nationalist narratives. The vulnerability of the media stems from the popularity of conspiracy theories, low media literacy and opaque funding structures.
However, according to Mascut, the weakening of Romania’s democracy is still primarily driven by domestic movements and systemic flaws, with external forces like Russia exploiting these weaknesses rather than directly initiating them. The final conclusion from Andrei Macsut’s paper is that in the worst-case scenario, Romanian democracy may turn out to be too fragile to survive both internal transgressions of the democratic process, as well as the external illiberal pressure from Russia.
Fuelling the Fire: Russia’s Role in Romania’s Democratic Struggles – download report
The policy paper was produced as part of the “Protecting European Values” project.
