Republished with permission from Mary Wald

In his now infamous speech to the Munich Security Conference, J.D. Vance’s opening shot was aimed at Romania. Europe, he said, had betrayed the “shared values” that have been the basis of the American-European alliance for so long.

Vance described being “struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election.” He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany, too.

“Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears,” he said. “For years, we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values.”

The only problem with Vance’s “shock” and indignation is the election that was annulled has nothing to do with shared democratic values. The Romanian courts stopped a blatant Russian effort to install a puppet government in Romania by subterfuge. It didn’t bother Vance that Russia had done it. It bothered him that Russia had been stopped. Because of course, he was rooting for the Russian puppet.

It was not the worst part of the speech. But it opens a window to how this will be done in Europe, with Russia on one side and the Trump administration on the other, as the fight for the survival of the EU and NATO moves into full swing.

Romania held a presidential election on November 24, 2024. Calin Georgescu, the pro-Russian, far right candidate, came away with 22.9% of the vote. There were oddities. Just four weeks before the election, Georgescu had 1% of the vote. He was running as an independent with no party machine behind him. In his election filings, he claimed that he spent zero funds on his campaign.

Calin Georgescu is cut from the same mold as Viktor Orban and Jair Bolsonaro. He frequently warns that Romania’s Christian identity is under threat from “globalist elites” and “secular forces” determined to eradicate traditional values. He claims that Romania’s sovereignty is being eroded by the European Union’s promotion of multiculturalism, which he frames as incompatible with the country’s Christian roots. He invokes the so-called “Great Replacement” theory, which claims Christian populations are being systematically replaced by immigrants and non-Christian communities. He is anti-NATO, anti-EU, promises to outlaw “LGBT propaganda” and has vowed to withdraw support for Ukraine.

A center right candidate, Elena Lasconi, won 19% in the November election. As no candidate achieved a majority, a second round was supposed to be held on December 8.

Two days before the runoff, on December 6, the Constitutional Court annulled the outcome of the first round. A new election was scheduled for May.

Why? Two days before that, on December 4, Romanian intelligence services had declassified documents that said the country had been the target of an “aggressive hybrid Russian action” during the election campaigns.

If you’re wondering why Russia would be intensively interested in having a Romanian president who is anti-NATO, anti-EU, and vows to withdraw support of Ukraine, a look at the map of the region may answer that question.

Georgescu went from 1% to 22% with the help of a massive Tik Tok campaign, and a vast manipulation operation. 25,000 (likely fake) Tiktok accounts that had been largely dormant since 2016 and began actively disseminating pro-Georgescu material just two weeks before the election. According to the intelligence documents, from November 11 on, “the entire network was activated at full capacity.”

Influencers were recruited to promote Georgescu. Romania’s own mini-Elon, crypto-bro Bogdan Peschir, called the “King of Tik Tok” in Romania, paid out $381,000 to more than 100 Tik Tok influencers with a combined total of over 8 million followers for promoting Georgescu. When asked where the money came from, Peschir responded, “it’s none of your business.”1

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