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.
Informaţiile publicate pe site-ul Digi24.ro pot fi preluate, în conformitate cu legislația aplicabilă, doar în limita a 120 de caractere.
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.
Volodymyr Zhemchuhov was born 80 kilometres from the Russian border, speaks Russian as his mother…
The Czech-led initiative that has supplied Ukraine with more than four million large-calibre artillery shells…
Britain has announced a new package of sanctions targeting cryptocurrency exchanges and illicit financial networks…
Latvia's foreign ministry has dismissed Moscow's threat to take the Baltic states to the International…
Paris prosecutors have launched an independent investigation into an alleged foreign influence operation that targeted…
Iceland's foreign minister has warned that the country's August referendum on resuming EU accession talks…