DISINFORMATION: Russia has invaded Romania just once

NARRATIVES: 1. Russia has invaded Romanian territory just once. 2. The Romanian army and leaders did not put up any resistance against the Soviet invasion of 1944.

WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: History based on documents, and not on its subjective interpretations, objectively records no less than 12 invasions by Russian armies of the present-day territories of Romania, beginning in the 18th century and culminating in the one of 1944, which led to the stationing of Moscow's troops in our country until August 1958. The first Russian invasion took place on September 1, 1739, when the tsarist army triumphantly entered Iasi, near the end of the Russo-Austro-Turkish war, which began in 1735, and through which Russia aimed to conquer Crimea, then a territory owned by the Ottoman Empire. In the same year, the Russians eventually occupied a large part of Wallachia, but were forced to withdraw after the conclusion of the Niš peace treaty, which forced them to give up their claims over Crimea and Moldova. By the same treaty they were, however, allowed to build a port on the Sea of ​​Azov, but without any fortification or fleet on the Black Sea.

Later, the tsarist armies tried, with or without success, to occupy territories belonging to Romania today: in 1768, when Catherine the Great, after Crimea, wanted to also annex the two Romanian provinces, in 1787, when Russia annexed the territory known today as Transnistria, in 1806, when, to defend themselves from Napoleon, the Russians deployed 40,000 soldiers in Moldavia and Wallachia,  culminating in 1812, when Moscow finally succeeded in annexing Bessarabia, triggering an extremely violent and intensive Russification campaign of the territory, the effects of which we feel even today, more than two centuries after it started.

In 1821, Russian troops invaded the Romanian principalities again, taking advantage of the uprising of the Greek Etherists against the Ottoman Empire, and in 1828 the Tsarist Empire invaded Moldavia and Dobrogea. We recall that at that time, Wallachia was already militarily administered by Russia, through General Pavel Kiseleff. The years 1848 and 1853 record two more Russian invasions in Romanian territories, once to suppress the 1848 Revolution, the second time to compensate for the defeat suffered in the Crimean War. In 1877, after Romania chose to intervene on the Russian side in the war against the Turks, the Tsarist Empire "helped" us to obtain our independence by forcing us to cede, eventually, the south of Bessarabia as well.

The 20th century saw the last two Russian invasions. In 1940, following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the USSR annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, and in 1944, "the only year in which the Russians came", in Ion Cristoiu's opinion, after a large-scale military operation, the Red Army troops occupied Romania, forcing the exit of our country from the alliance with Nazi Germany, and recapturing the Romanian territories liberated in 1941. The Soviet "liberation" from the Nazi yoke lasted, as shown above, 14 years, during which almost all of Romania's resources went the way of Moscow, in a process that turned it, unofficially, into a Soviet colony.

The Romanian army fought hard alongside and against the Russians

The fact that the arrival of the Russians was "announced" or not cannot, however, in any way lead to the conclusion that "the Russians came only once, in 1944". Also, "maestro" Cristoiu’s commentaries about Romania’s history and defense capacity are deeply erroneous - hopefully out of ignorance, because otherwise the couls suspect the maestro of intentionally manipulating and twisting facts of the past. Thus, we must mention that, in 1917, although the Romanian troops really fought alongside the Russian ones against Germany, on the Mărăști - Mărășești - Oituz front line, ours were not “just there", as Cristoiu suggests. The command of the Romanian-Russian troops was a joint one, the Romanian and the Russian sides having equal decision-making powers.

This fact is highlighted even by the measure taken by the country's leadership to replace General Constantin Christescu and place General Eremia Grigorescu at the command of the Romanian troops, following the disagreements between the former and the head of the Russian armies, General Alexandr Ragoza, over the battle strategy. It is as clear as it can be that the Russians could not carry out their military plans without the consent and help of the Romanians. Moreover, General Eremia Grigorescu was later decorated, for "the judicious decisions made in terms of operational orders against an enemy much superior in number" and for "the bravery and skill with which he managed to stop the German offensive in Mărășești, in the summer of 1917, taking command of the army under very difficult conditions".

Going back to the Second World War, despite the statements made by Ion Cristoiu, who quotes just one obscure weekly publication of the time, Sentinela, the Romanian press did not paint life in the USSR in shades of gray at all. The press of the time would report daily the situation on the front, the population always being aware of the evolution of the war. The Battle of Stalingrad, about which Cristoiu states that the Romanians had no idea, was given daily front page coverage, from its beginning in the summer of '42, until its end, in February '43. On February 3, 1943, the day after the official end of the fighting, acknowledging the defeat, the daily Universul wrote: "The German troops from the 6th Army, the Romanian troops from the 20th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division with a small Croatian formation remained isolated in a completely surrounded island, relying on their own diminishing means of defense, just like the space in which the tragic circumstances condemned them to support one of the most uplifting defense battles, through their spirit of sacrifice and their admirable attitude in front of an enemy far superior in number and weaponry.

Ion Cristoiu also lies when he says that, in April 1944, the Romanian troops watched the Soviet invasion impassively. Even Russia recognizes that the ”liberation” of the Moldavian SSR and Romania’s removal from the war on the side of Nazy GErmany  was made with great sacrifices and efforts by the Soviet army. Moscow official figures show that the casualties suffered the Soviet troops in the Iasi-Chisinau Operation were 13,197 dead and 53,933 wounded, which corresponds to approximately 1% and 4.3% of the total number of troops at the beginning of the operation.

Spring of 1944, in the press of the time

In reality, despite the Soviet propaganda that would base its accounts of the conduct of hostilities exclusively on its own documents, as the German archives came to the attention of specialists, it became abundantly clear that Soviet historiography interpreted the military campaigns in a subjective way , keeping the failures under wraps, diminishing their own losses and exaggerating those of the enemy. Even in the Romanian press of the time, there were daily reports about the battles on the Moldavian front. Here are some of them, from the month of April alone: "The Romanian troops are fighting the advanced Soviet elements who managed to cross the West of the upper Prut through several points. Violent counter-attacks by our troops recorded local successes. In the middle part of Bessarabia, Romanian and German troops are fighting alternatively - Universul, April 1, 1944;

"In middle Bessarabia and North of Iasi, no important event. In the Pašcani sector, after a 2-hour artillery training, the enemy carried out a strong reconnaissance and was repulsed. Northeast of Oglinzi, our troops recaptured a village and a forest, inflicting losses on the enemy." – Universul  April 21, 1944; "In middle Bessarabia and on the Moldovan front, reduced activity of the security forces." - Universul, April 25, 1944; "On the lower Dniester, attempts to break through were repulsed, ending in casualties. In middle Bessarabia, nothing to report. Fierce battles are underway north of Iaşi. The enemy continued to attack with strong forces supported by armored vehicles. Several local intrusions were closed or reduced by counterattack. In the Pašcani sector and in the mountains of Bucovina, no important event." - Universul, April 29, 1944.

The statement that Germany betrayed Romania is not exactly true either.  Indeed, the German High Command withdrew 11 large units from Romania, 7 of which armored, but the action took place gradually, and only after the stabilization of the Romanian front, between June 23 and August 18, 1944, and those units were transferred to other sectors of the Eastern Front threatened by the same Soviet army that also threatened Romania.

Ion Cristoiu, between the hen that gave birth to live chicks and Russian propaganda

CONTEXT: The global context, in which the war in Ukraine, the result of the presidential elections in the USA, the conflict in the Middle East, or the political crisis facing the European Union are intertwining and influencing each other, can have a dramatic impact on the Western space in general, and of the Romanian one, in particular. For this reason, more and more voices show fear that a Russian success in Ukraine will not bring peace, on the contrary, will escalate the smoldering conflict between the Kremlin and NATO. Russian propaganda is trying to lull the "vigilance" of a Europe that has been too long in the shade of the United States, and one of the heavily promoted narratives is that Russia is not looking to attack any NATO member state, just to annex the Ukrainian territories over which it claims it has a historical right.

This is not Ion Cristoiu’s first "deviation"; since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine he has been the promoter of several false narratives of Russian origin, such as the one claiming that the Netherlands opposes Romania's entry into Schengen because the port of Constanța threatens the supremacy of the port of Rotterdam.   Meanwhile, the Netherlands has actually voted for our country's accession to the European free movement area. Moreover, in January 2023, Cristoiu claimed that the  West and Romania will go to war on the side of Ukraine , in order to get a NATO or EU post for President Klaus Iohannis, when his term ends.  This narrative did not turn out to be true either, Iohannis announcing that he would no longer run for any international position, after he had indeed tried to get the highest NATO office, but on political, not military, criteria.

In the material under analysis we also note the otherwise puerile attempt to introduce the theory of "bad" Ukrainians into the narrative thread, when it states that, in fact, the Soviet troops that occupied Romania in 1944 were made up exclusively of Ukrainians and Kalmyks, not ethnic Russians, putting another small brick in the foundation of Romanians' anti-Ukrainian feelings. Moreover, the "maestro" promoted false narratives related to Ukraine even before the actual invasion was launched; for example, just a few days before, he said that the  Western media   was disinforming about the crisis in that country, and after the invasion he came up with theories according to which Ukrainians are cannon fodder for the West, , that the war in Ukraine is a pretext  to denigrate Russia , to impose censorship, to frighetn the population in Romania and Europe and to make arms sellers rich.

All these opinions, however, are in stark contrast to those exposed in an article published in June 2024, in which Cristoiu, forgetting that "the Russians only came once", wrote about one of the historical episodes that we also mentioned at the beginning of the material, the Russian occupation of the Romanian Principalities of 1821-1856, making a comparison with the situation in 1944. We quote from the article: "In both situations the Russians justify occupation through a so-called liberation. In 1812, liberation from the Turks. In 1944, liberation from the fascist yoke."; "In both situations, Russia aims to establish its internal order in the Principalities, forcing an existing reality to Proustianly cram into foreign patterns. "Russia occupies the Principalities militarily and at the same time ideologically." The end of the quoted material is incomprehensible in the current context, Cristoiu simply accusing Russia of mystifying the past and rewriting history: "On top of the material exploitation through Sovroms, there lied the spiritual Russification of Romania, the assassination of the national soul, through the Bolshevization of the culture, the rewriting of the past, the liquidation of the political and intellectual elite." A kind of "a thief crying “stop thief!”", in the Cristoiu Blog version.

PURPOSE: To weaken trust in the state authorities, to amplify pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian feelings.