Romanian Presidential Election Marks Pro-EU Victory Despite Russian Influence Claims

Russ­ian influ­ence con­cerns resur­faced in the Roman­ian pres­i­den­tial elec­tion as vot­ers deci­sive­ly reject­ed the far-right. On May 18, 2025, CNN report­ed that pro-Euro­pean Union can­di­date Nicușor Dan won Roma­ni­a’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion with near­ly 54% of the vote, defeat­ing ultra­na­tion­al­ist George Simion amid alle­ga­tions of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence through social media dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns. The arti­cle begins:

Roma­ni­a’s pro-Euro­pean Union pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Nicușor Dan won the coun­try’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion Sun­day, defeat­ing his ultra­na­tion­al­ist rival. With 100% of the votes count­ed, the cen­trist can­di­date won near­ly 54% of the bal­lots cast, a clear win over hard-right can­di­date George Simion, who is a fan of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump. Simion, who oppos­es pro­vid­ing mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine and is crit­i­cal of the EU, looked on track to win the elec­tion after he swept the first round on May 4. How­ev­er, Dan gained ground after trounc­ing Simion in a tele­vised debate.

Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/18/europe/romania-presidential-election-result-intl-latam

Key Points

• The elec­tion was a rerun after the orig­i­nal Decem­ber vote was annulled due to alleged Russ­ian inter­fer­ence that helped far-right can­di­date Calin Georgescu.
• Roman­ian Min­istry of For­eign Affairs report­ed “hall­marks of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence” through fake news cam­paigns on Telegram and oth­er plat­forms dur­ing Sun­day’s voting.
• Dan, cur­rent­ly Bucharest’s may­or, strong­ly sup­ports NATO mem­ber­ship and con­tin­ued aid to Ukraine as essen­tial to Roma­ni­a’s secu­ri­ty against Russ­ian threats.
• Euro­pean and Ukrain­ian lead­ers quick­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed Dan, with Ukraine’s Pres­i­dent Zelen­sky prais­ing Roma­nia as a “reli­able part­ner” against Russ­ian aggression.

Romania Russia Influence Election: Kremlin Tactics, Digital Manipulation, and Electoral Disruption

Romania’s 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion show­cased the Kremlin’s evolv­ing strat­e­gy of hybrid inter­fer­ence, as Russ­ian-linked Telegram net­works and coor­di­nat­ed online cam­paigns tar­get­ed vot­ers with pro-Krem­lin nar­ra­tives and ampli­fied the pro­files of nation­al­ist, anti-EU can­di­dates. The sud­den promi­nence of fig­ures like Călin Georges­cu, whose ascent was close­ly tied to nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive net­works, reflect­ed a broad­er pat­tern of Russ­ian influ­ence doc­u­ment­ed across East­ern Europe, where dig­i­tal manip­u­la­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion are used to desta­bi­lize demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions. The defeat­ed can­di­date, George Simion, also had his roots in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA). Both Georges­cu and Simion are lead­ers in the Alliance for the Union of Roma­ni­ans (AUR).

Inves­ti­ga­tions revealed that a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of Roman­ian-lan­guage Telegram chan­nels sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly echoed Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da, while cyber­at­tacks attrib­uted to Russ­ian intel­li­gence tar­get­ed elec­toral infra­struc­ture, as detailed in region­al inter­fer­ence tac­tics. These oper­a­tions aligned with reports that Romania’s intel­li­gence ser­vices uncov­ered hard evi­dence of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence, includ­ing algo­rith­mi­cal­ly boost­ed con­tent and covert attempts to deep­en soci­etal divi­sions. The Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court’s deci­sion to annul the elec­tion under­scored the sever­i­ty of the threat, as doc­u­ment­ed by both local media and inter­na­tion­al observers.

This episode high­lights how infor­ma­tion war­fare-lever­ag­ing social media, cyber oper­a­tions, and ide­o­log­i­cal allies-now threat­ens not only Romania’s polit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty but also the broad­er secu­ri­ty of NATO’s east­ern flank, as described in analy­ses of algo­rith­mic inva­sions and elec­tion sub­ver­sion across the region.

Exter­nal References:

1. 1. Accu­sa­tions of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in the 2024 Roman­ian pres­i­den­tial elec­tion (Wikipedia)

   2. Roma­nia report­ed­ly holds hard evi­dence of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions (Roma­nia Insider)

   3. Algo­rith­mic inva­sions: How infor­ma­tion war­fare threat­ens NATO’s east­ern flank (NATO Review)

   4. The Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Roots of Romania’s New Polit­i­cal Star

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.