The United States proposed the dismantling of Romania and wanted to offer it to Russia at the end of the Cold War, according to a piece of disinformation published in Bucharest. The offer was allegedly made based on theses from “The Clash of Civilizations”, a book that was published a few years later.
NEWS: "Also in the early 1990s, it can be said that the United States came up with a counter-offer, which can be considered generous only insofar as we relate it to an act of capitulation on Moscow’s part, in reality something existing only in Washington's imagination. What was proposed was a return to the sphere of influence of tsarist Russia until the outbreak of the First World War. This meant a new line of demarcation in Europe between the Catholic and Protestant West, on the one hand, and the Orthodox East, on the other. The one who conceived the doctrinal support of the project was Samuel Huntington (through the study developed later in his book “The Clash of Civilizations”).
According to him, the border between the two spheres was to be the line of the Carpathian Mountains. As a consequence, Romania would have been dismembered, Transylvania being allocated to the Euro-Atlantic bloc and the Old Kingdom to the Euro-Asian bloc, i.e. the USA / Germany and Russia, respectively. As dividing Romania into pieces didn’t work (and this is due to those who were in charge of the country in the year of the “great trial”, 1990), the next move would’ve been allocating it entirely to Russia. And does anyone still have the audacity to criticize today the rebirth of spheres of influence?! […] The demonizing speech made by the US and its ventriloquists in the NATO General Secretariat about Russia, insofar as it is sterile, i.e. not followed by concrete action, meant only to fill in the space in expectation of the Kremlin’s next move on the chessboard, can be termed as an alibi for the lack of political vision, of any policy. If it is a negotiation tactic meant to intimidate the other speaker, it becomes an adventure when the real dialogue is postponed sine die due to the lack of a clear idea of the strategic goal pursued. In the past, Nazi Germany would unleash an aggressive campaign to demonize its victims before attacking them with troops. […] The support granted in the field to the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine in 2004, with a booster ten years later, is already well documented and impossible to contradict. There is no longer any secret about those who sent tents, blankets, cans, medical equipment, and even something sharper, as well as advisers to Maidan Square in support of the “democratic forces” who were “peacefully” demanding the change of the political regime.”
NARRATIVES: 1. Romania has maintained its territorial integrity after 1990 thanks to Russia. 2. The United States is behaving like Nazi Germany and is running campaigns to demonize Russia. 3. The 2013 Euromaidan in Kiev was an “orange revolution” organized by the West.
LOCAL CONTEXT / ETHOS: The negotiations held in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna in the week of January 10-15 between the West and Russia did not produce the effects expected by Moscow. The Russians put on the table a series of demands recalling the old Cold War method of sharing the spheres of influence. In fact, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, considers the collapse of the USSR and Russia’s losing its world power influence as the greatest “geopolitical disaster of the twentieth century.”
In the negotiations, Russia demanded, among other things, the elimination of the NATO and US presence on the eastern flank and blocking the expansion of the Alliance to the east, more precisely blocking the accession of Ukraine and Georgia.
Russia’s demands were made public after Moscow had amassed more than 100,000 troops at the border with Ukraine, and Kiev and the Western states voiced worries that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine.
The author of the material is the former Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Member of the European Parliament caught while receiving a bribe camouflaged in consulting contracts, and convicted for that in 2016. After his release from prison, Adrian Severin adopted a virulent anti-Western speech, and many of his theses are similar to those of the Russian propaganda.
PURPOSE: To promote the idea that the United States is an aggressor, while Russia is only trying to secure its borders and is acting defensively.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The author provides no evidence and there are no relevant documents or testimonies to support the theory that the United States proposed to Russia the dismemberment of Romania. Adrian Severin is trying to link this imaginary US offer to the theses of the American theorist Samuel L. Huntington (see page 30) who also worked for the Washington administration as an adviser on foreign policy and security. Huntington only launched a theory about religious and cultural identity and the conflicts that might arise at the intersections of different cultures. Coincidentally, it is Russia itself that emphasizes its cultural and religious identity in contrast to the Western one, which is much more permissive, inclusive and tolerant.
“The Clash of Civilizations” is a work that appeared after the end of the Cold War and after the collapse of the USSR - the article on which the book was based was published only in 1993!
Moscow also claims that the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was promised at the end of the Cold War that NATO would not expand, but there is no document attesting to that promise, and several Soviet officials back then including Gorbachev, said such a promise was not made. The West rejects this narrative too. Moreover, the former translator of the last leader of the USSR, Pavel Palajchenko, has recently stated that no Western leader would have promised Gorbachev that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe. Moreover, Palajchenko acknowledged this live on one of the most popular state TV stations in Russia - Rossia 24.
Then, comparing the US to Nazi Germany is one of the main themes of the Russian propaganda promoted including by the Russian embassy in Romania and debunked Veridica.ro.
Demonizing the US has been part of the usual arsenal of Russian propaganda, after Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and has been showing growing hostility in the Black Sea area ever since.Last but not least, Adrian Severin's material speaks of the fact that Russia does not want to impose in Kiev its docile governments, but at the same time talks about the Euromaidan in Kiev at the end of 2013 as a “color revolution” set in motion by the West and not by the Ukrainians’ desire to choose the European path for their country. And this is one of the favorite topics of the Russian propaganda, which accuses the Euromaidan of being a ”a coup d’etat masterminded by fascist leaders”. In fact, the Kremlin has a real obsession with what it calls the “color revolutions”, namely pro-democracy movements in the former Soviet states, as it fears that, on the one hand, these movements are taking those countries away from its sphere of influence, and on the other hand, it does not want such movements to reach Russia, where they could pose a threat to the regime. Hostility towards civil society and the independent press must be read in the same key.
GRAIN OF TRUTH: Russia and the West are negotiating over the first’s recent demands regarding certain guarantees that NATO will not expand further east.
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