Romanian President Nicușor Dan said there are grounds to believe that Russia attempted to influence the outcome of Romania’s presidential election both in November 2024 and in May 2025.
He made the remarks during a visit to the Austrian city of Salzburg, Digi24 reported.
According to Dan, there were attempts at manipulation during both the canceled November 2024 presidential election in Romania and the May 2025 election.
“About what happened in Romania, in my opinion, in the November elections and the May elections, over time, a network was built, in the online area, with sites, which attracted people on different topics, from sports to health or natural remedies, esotericism and all sorts of other things, which I saw at a certain point, in the electoral context, that they acted in one direction,” said the President of Romania.
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The Romanian president added that in such a case, there is a “strong suspicion that this is interference by a state that cannot be anyone other than Russia, especially since we see it happening in many places in Europe.”
Dan said, “This is one part of this interference, and the second is the aggressive disinformation campaigns that we saw both in November and in May, for which a lot of money was paid on social networks.”
“We must be able to react to a fake news story within half an hour, so that it does not reach several million people and the news that corrects it no longer has an impact,” stated the Romanian president.
At the same time, the Romanian leader compared the campaign to the situation in Moldova, where the interference was implemented not only through an influence campaign on social networks but also through voter bribery networks.
Concerns about Russian interference in the electoral process emerged even during the presidential campaign in Romania.
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