The war against Romania

In 2025 Russia CAN win the Battle for Romania. The outcome of this battle depends not just on the state, but on each of us.

1. We are at war, ladies and gentlemen.

And unfortunately it will not pass if we stick our heads in the sand. If what I am saying seems out of the ordinary, I will be sure to define and spell out what I mean:

Russia has started a war against Romanian society, against the Romanian state and therefore against each and every one of us. Within the framework of the hybrid war that it has been waging for some time now on Europe, Romania is one of the states that has long been a Russian target.

1.1 War: according to one of the greatest theorists, Carl von Clausewitz, war is the continuation of politics by other means. Russia's state policy is defined not only by the official documents assumed by the Russian federation, but also by what we know as the 'Gherasimov Doctrine', a policy aimed at destabilizing Europe by destroying the cohesion and unity of its member states through the use of complex and diversified methods, both kinetic and non-kinetic;

1.2 Hybrid war: a war in which the line between armed, kinetic conflict between states through the use of violence to achieve political ends is supplemented by activities that would normally fall into other spheres: sabotage, information manipulation, manipulation of perceptions, cyber attacks, etc;

2. The war against Romania:

Since I have defined the basics of the concepts I am working with, I go on to try to convince you not only that we have been attacked, but that we are currently under siege and our reaction as a state, but also as a society, with small exceptions, is a worrying one.

2. 1 The war against Romania is one that borrows elements from different areas that are related or even part of the hybrid war, but I would limit myself to saying that we are just part of a hybrid war, victims of an informational, asymmetric, cyber war with the clear objective of destabilizing Romania in its international context (NATO and the EU), in order to disadvantage both Romania and its partners, leading to the weakening of NATO's Eastern front, weakening the cohesion of the European Union, which would lead to the creation of operational and strategic breaches from which the Russian Federation can take advantage.

Example 1 - Information Warfare: Russia's in-depth sociological research on Romanian society, started in 2016 (which we officially learned about in the CSAT reports), continued with actions that can be easily identified as the product of analyzing our society, are part of an easily identifiable pattern, from the non-kinetic, hybrid warfare playbook. russia wanted to find out what our vulnerabilities are, in order to exploit them, to create breaches and use our own vulnerabilities against us;

Example 2 - Economic warfare: The possible purchase of E.On Romania (German company) by MVM (Orban's Kremlin puppet energy arm) is part of what is called "weaponizing economy" or "weaponizing energy" or "weaponizing resources". This is just an example I am giving now because it is recent, but in Europe, the best known case is in the winter of 2022 to 2023, when Russia tried to blackmail European states to stop delivering gas and oil needed during the winter. European energy security measures were excellent fortunately (including Romania's) and so Russia lost that battle.

Example 3 - Exploitation of fear: the drone crashes in Dobrogea were not "accidents", but as I warned then, they are part of a larger plan. The plan is to exploit Romanians' legitimate fears of war and conflict against them. The cadence used by the Russians, the strategic moments (superimposing them on moments of internal social/political stress), are clear indicators of Russia's INTENTION to generate fear in the population and then to use this fear in a perverted sense.

If you look on the map of Romania in the places where C?lin Georgescu got the most votes in relation to turnout, you will be able to notice a pattern in the area of Br?ila-Gala?i-Tulcea-Constan?a. Coincidence? No. Because, one (not the only one) of the candidates on whom Russia bet, C?lin Georgescu spoke with conviction on two related subjects: "peace" and "Romania will not be drawn into war".

Example 4 - the political war: direct or indirect, overt or covert Russian support for Diana Soo?oaca, C?lin Georgescu, George Simion in the Romanian presidential elections falls under "Active Measures", a practice developed in the Soviet era by the KGB and brought to the status of state policy under Yuri Andropov, the 60s-70s director of the KGB and later president of the USSR. "Active Measures" is an extremely well-documented concept, it should not be news to anyone in the Romanian political and institutional leadership, and this concept is practically used in part in all the other examples.

Example 5 - information/cyber warfare: the constant attacks on strategic IT infrastructure (Central Electoral Bureau, Permanent Electoral Authority) during the presidential elections, coupled with the multiple waves of attacks by troll farms and botnets in recent years, are clear indicators of this type of war that Russia is waging against Romania.

3. Response:

Even if we don't like (and I don't like) the CCR's decision to annul the first round of elections, it was based not on the examples I gave here, nor on the (some laughable) service reports given in CSAT, but most likely on extensive reports that have not been declassified, on evidence of Russian meddling in our elections, which prove that the electoral process was flawed and therefore any result would have been incorrect or even illegitimate.

The indicators I look at when analyzing this response:

- The political class by their post-election actions prove that they understand the situation and are fighting to regain some of their lost credibility.

This is not happening. PSD and USR have taken turns rolling their eyes at the negotiations, demonstrating immaturity to say the least. The PNL and PSD are proposing a tin can reeking of intelligence services, with no credibility whatsoever, the co-author of a constitutional coup attempt, as their joint candidate, Crin Antonescu. The PNL and its new leadership are being compromised by this choice. Elena Lasconi, the pro-European candidate supports this idea in a monumental blunder. The Ministry of Justice goes to an advocate of the PSD and PNL mafia. USR, the most pro-European and pro-NATO party, aligns itself with AUR, SOS and POT.

The political class has totally failed in its mission. This indicator shows a failure of historic proportions of the Romanian political class. Romanian and foreign historians will write about this if in 2025 Russia wins the Battle for Romania.

- The state institutions, through their public communication and their (at least partly) public actions, will provide a sense of security and transparency, both necessary to recover the loss of trust suffered over the last many years.

This is not happening. The CCR does not communicate coherently, it invalidates the first round of the elections, after having validated the inexplicable recount of all the votes based on the complaint of a pawn of the system, Cristian Terhes. The Central Electoral Office does not explain the cyber attacks to which it was subjected, nor does the Permanent Electoral Authority. President Iohannis initially hesitates to name Russia as the state actor that attacked us. He does so at a later date and allows Russia and its people of influence to speculate the moment. The CSAT reports, at least some of them, are amateurish to the point of stupidity.

Note: 2. State institutions, even if at least some of them, driven by good intentions communicate disastrously, deepening and widening the trust gap between society and them at a crucial moment. Keeping leaders like Toni Grebl? at the head of the AEP does not help.

- Intelligence services and prosecutors are working together to dismantle potential networks organized on Romanian territory by Russia or other state and non-state actors, designed (networks, organizations) to help or amplify the attacks to which we have been and are subjected.

Note: 4. Intelligence services apparently knew about all these organizations, had them under surveillance, and leaders and important actors were being monitored. The lack of their action (which would translate into something visible) or of their coherent communication, leads to the maintenance of mistrust towards the services which have a determining role in protecting the democratic system in Romania. Keeping Gabriel Vlase as head of the SIE helps by driving a stake through the heart of any confident optimist. The public prosecutor's offices have made themselves up for raids and arrests, which have materialized in judicial control or even less, even though we are talking about the biggest operation to destabilize the democratic system in Romania. The internal operation of "Dust in the eyes of fools", as I called the whole joke with Hora?iu Potra (his dangerousness is not a joke, but the action of the authorities) and Co. is a clear example that these institutions fail to rise to the demands of the moment.

5. We

Romanian society has many bugs and surely each one of us can find dozens of examples of how Romanians suck, are stupid, idiotic, mythocaniacs, mean or villains. I can tell you that we are no better or worse than anyone else. This is where the lying comes in, the manipulation of information as a tactical operation in Russia's complex plan.

Part of Russia's war against us is to make us think that some of us are dumber than others. That some of us are good and some of us are bad. That some of us are morally superior to others. That some of us are doing us harm by the way we are. And I come to tell you it's false. Every one of us is susceptible to the Russian way of attack. I guarantee you that every one of you reading this text is vulnerable at this very moment to a spear-phishing attack, which involves "fooling" you into acting against your own personal interests. That makes you neither stupid nor equal, superior or inferior to a C?lin Georgescu voter. It just makes you human. With vulnerabilities, behavior and thought patterns that can more easily than you think be used by Russia against you (or me, by all means).

It is true that we are not all equal, we are not equal either in responsibility or in knowledge or lack of it, in intelligence or stupidity. But it is equally true that this historic moment for us, for Romania, for the future of the society in which we want to bring up our children, depends more on us than we like to think. It depends not only more, but the influence of each and every one of us is crucial. In 2025 and beyond, we will have elections to make that will shape Romania's future. Not just electoral elections, but elections of positioning, of thinking, of action.

I have written all this text to draw attention to the fact that now is the time to keep our eyes on our goal. And our aim is to point out the main culprit: Russia. To show where we are: we are at war. To show what we stand to lose: the way society is run, the democratic regime itself is in danger. Let's show what we want from the institutions and politics: maturity, communication, transparency.

I know that some of the culprits for the situation we are in are Romanian traitors. Traitors and useful idiots. I know that some of them are now in Parliament from pro-European parties. Some of them run key institutions in Romania. I know that you detest the way the system works as much as I do (and I have very strong and personal reasons to do so, unlike 99% of you who read me), but this moment in our history is about defeating Russia, not about how to defeat ourselves internally. It is about how to get rid of an evil we can neither understand, let alone constrain, so that we can then continue the internal struggle with the evil it is doing to us, to us, through corruption, nepotism, carelessness, stupidity and indolence.

Now is the time to keep our eye on the ball, not go for the feint. Romania is at war. Your minds are the trophies Russia wants. Only individual and collective reason can save us.