Russia carried out 34 hybrid attacks against Romania last year, according to a report by the Italian Republic’s Intelligence System for Security (AISE), which indicates that Romania has become one of the Kremlin’s preferred targets. The name of Calin Georgescu also appears in the Italian intelligence services’ document. The Italian intelligence services’ report states that Romania was targeted by aggressive hybrid attacks on the electoral process. The Italians write that 25,000 TikTok accounts became highly active in supporting presidential candidate Calin Georgescu two weeks before the November 2024 elections. Additionally, they mention 797 pro-Calin Georgescu accounts created in 2016, which became very active shortly before the elections. There were 5,005 Telegram accounts spreading propaganda in favor of Calin Georgescu, and $381,000 was spent on sponsoring this content, according to the report. The amount was spent starting from October 24, 2024. The Italians also report direct cyberattacks on Romania’s electoral infrastructure until November 25, 2024, counting 85,000 attacks during the electoral process. These attacks originated from servers in 33 different countries but are attributed to the Kremlin. The report also covers elections in Georgia and the upcoming ones in Germany, but its most detailed analysis focuses on Romania. On March 3, Italy’s ambassador to Bucharest, Alfred Maria Durande, announced that foreign forces had interfered in last year’s Romanian presidential elections. He spoke of an “intense and deep manipulation” of the country’s electoral process.
Update: Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan won the Romanian presidential election on May 18, according to the official vote count. With 98.5% of the ballots counted, Nicusor Dan had 54.17% of the votes, 900,000 more than his opponent, nationalist George Simion. A record turnout both in the country and abroad helped Dan come back from 1.88 million […]
Romanians showed up in record numbers to vote in the second round of the presidential elections, both in the country and abroad. The exit poll results presented on Sunday evening pointed to a strong lead for Bucharest’s pro-EU mayor Nicusor Dan (54%-46%), but are only relevant for the domestic vote. Both candidates claimed victory in […]
Romanians showed up in large numbers to vote in the second round of the country’s presidential elections, one of the most important democratic tests Romania has seen in the last three decades. At 14:00, exactly halfway through the voting process in the country, over 5.63 million Romanians have cast their votes, compared with 4.52 million […]
Romanians abroad have mobilized massively to vote in the second round of the country’s presidential elections. Update: By Sunday afternoon (15:00 Bucharest time), over 1.2 million Romanians have voted abroad for the country's next president. That's some 220,000 more votes than the overall total in the first round. The countries with the largest turnout are […]
Romanians abroad have mobilized massively to vote in the second round of the country’s presidential elections. The vote in Diaspora started on Friday morning, and by Saturday evening (at 19:00), over 609,000 Romanians had already cast their votes. The turnout is almost 90% higher than the one recorded at the same time in the first […]
It's almost impossible to think about anything not related to elections this weekend but if you should need some distraction, there are options. Happening now is the European Film Festival, screening recent productions from the continent, very varied in theme, tone, and genre. The fest is playing Bucharest, Sfântu Gheorghe and Timișoara until Sunday and […]
