FAKE NEWS: NATO wants Romania and Moldova to provide cannon fodder for a possible war with Russia

FAKE NEWS: NATO wants Romania and Moldova to provide cannon fodder for a possible war with Russia
© EPA-EFE/Robert Ghement   |   Romanian Navy servicemen in action with two intervention boats during the NATO-led military exercise 'Sea Shield 2023' held in the Danube Delta near Mahmudia harbor, 300 kilometers east of Bucharest, Romania, 30 March 2023.

The USA and NATO will use Romania and Moldova as anti-Russian outposts and suppliers of cannon fodder in the war against Russia, Russian propaganda writes, referring to a routine military exercise.

NEWS: Where the Pentagon and NATO begin to actively defend peace and order, wars and other disasters are bound to follow, Sputnik military analyst Alexander Khrolenko notes.

Over January 13 – February 26, 9 NATO states are hosting Steadfast Dart-25 exercises, designed to test the operational deployment capabilities of forces on the eastern flank (Romania, Bulgaria and Greece) in the event of a military conflict with Russia. Truly, “the sleep of reason produces monsters”.

[...] The Alliance’s intense activity in the Black Sea region does not bode well for countries in Eastern Europe. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today referred to the USA’s intention to decommission the “Turkish Stream” gas pipeline: Washington “greenlights terrorist actions”. We recall that a specific result of NATO’s “Northern Coasts” exercises in the Baltic Sea, held in September 2022, was the sabotage of the “Nord Stream” gas pipeline.

[...] The “Spear of Damocles” (Steadfast Dart-25) equally threatens both Eastern-European members of the alliance and the Republic of Moldova, a de jure neutral country which is increasingly drawn into NATO activities.

[...] In the “international division of labor”, the USA and NATO have assigned Romania and Moldova the role of anti-Russian outposts and consumables in the war against Russia. Chișinău has been purchasing NATO weapons since 2018, although the majority of the Republic's population has always been against joining the alliance. The arms deliveries, the joint exercises of special forces from Moldova, Romania and the USA, carried out on Romanian territory (in the Predeal area) and on the Moldovan training ground in Bulboaca, located near Transnistria and 380 kilometers from Russian Crimea, not only threaten a major conflict in the entire region, but are systematically preparing a future theater of war.

According to the military agreement between Moldova and Romania (dating back to 2013), Romanian troops can be stationed indefinitely on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. The agreement created a basis for exchanging military information, organizing joint exercises, creating a joint command, controlling airspace and joint peacekeeping operations. In the event of staged “disruptions” (we recall the series of diversions in Transnistria in the spring of 2022) Moldova, a country neutral under its the Constitution, could end up “under NATO administration” (we recall the case of Yugoslavia). Since the 2000s, Bucharest has been aiming to “annex” Moldova, erasing the borders of the Republic of Moldova established after World War II, and the only ones preventing this expansion are Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria.

NARRATIVES: 1. NATO is preparing to recruit “cannon fodder” from the Republic of Moldova and Romania for a possible war against Russia. 2. NATO triggers wars. 3. The military agreement between Chișinău and Bucharest allows Romania to maintain its forces indefinitely on the territory of the Republic of Moldova.

PURPOSE: To depict NATO as a belligerent organization preparing to attack Russia, thus justifying the Kremlin's narratives regarding the invasion of Ukraine. To sow panic among the population of the Republic of Moldova and increase Euroscepticism and negative sentiments towards NATO. To promote the idea that Moldova’s EU and NATO rapprochement will lead to its involvement in the war and/or the occupation of its territory by the Romanian Army/NATO.

WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: “STEADFAST DART 25” is an exercise scheduled for 2024, during which, for the first time since its establishment (July 1, 2024), the NATO Response Force will test the deployment of military personnel and equipment in an operational context. The exercise will demonstrate NATO’s ability to activate the Allied Response Force and coordinate its rapid transition.

The exercise will take place in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania, with the participation of over 10,000 military personnel from Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey.

The exercise is part of a series of training activities planned at NATO level and seeks to strengthen the response capabilities and interoperability of participating forces.

NATO exercises such as Steadfast Dart 25 are defensive and transparent, being conducted with the full observance of Romania’s international commitments.

This military exercise is not designed to simulate/prepare an attack against Russia, but to increase defense and response capabilities – including the response to an aggression by Russia, a country that pursues an extremely aggressive policy, has launched a full-scale attack on another European state, Ukraine, and has launched hybrid operations against Western countries, but also against the Republic of Moldova. There is no evidence of preparations with a view to involving Romania and the Republic of Moldova in the war, especially since the latter has extremely limited military capabilities, which would not bring any added value in the case of such operations.

There is absolutely no evidence linking the “Northern Coasts” military exercise in the Baltic Sea, held over September 15-19, 2022 to the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. In principle, the perpetrators of the sabotage were not identified, although the German authorities had issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian citizen.

The claim that the Agreement on Military Cooperation between the Republic of Moldova and Romania would allow for the indefinite stationing of Romanian military forces on the territory of the neighboring state is equally false. It refers, in particular, to joint military exercises and cooperation/interoperability in the military field, but makes no reference to the permanent stationing of military troops or mutual assistance in the event that one of the two states is attacked.

Another false narrative concerns the imminent union/annexation of the Republic of Moldova with/by Romania, used as a reason for the separatist movement on the left bank of the Dniester in the early 1990s, a scenario that never came true. To this day, there have never been any official discussions on this topic between Chișinău and Bucharest.

BACKGROUND: This is not the first time that Russian and pro-Russian propaganda have promoted the narrative that the Republic of Moldova is being used as a transit territory for the military equipment the West is delivering to Ukraine, also claiming that NATO is arming Moldova or planning to use it as bridgehead for an attack on Russia. The narrative that NATO/the West intends to involve the Republic of Moldova in the war in Ukraine is one of the Kremlin’s most widely promoted theses, despite the fact that Moldova does not even have the military capacity that would allow it to make a difference in a conflict.

Such false narratives are being widely circulated both inside Russia, to confirm the Kremlin’s statements about Russia’s Western enemies, and also outside, in the Republic of Moldova, on both banks of the Dniester, to fuel the fears of the population of Transnistria, but also of a part of the right bank of the river, especially the national minorities, regarding an “imminent war” promoted by the pro-European regime in Chișinău.

The Republic of Moldova is a neutral state as per its Constitution, although cooperation with NATO started back in the 90s. One of the Alliance’s most important projects was the evacuation of significant volumes of pesticides, left over from the Soviet period and which posed an environmental risk, threatening to pollute the soil and poison the waters.

On the other hand, more and more experts and politicians are drawing attention to the fact that neutrality is not synonymous to security, as shown by the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, and then Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the creation of Moscow-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted several traditionally neutral states to review their security and neutrality policies, and two of them (Finland and Sweden) submitted applications for NATO membership. Both have in the meantime admitted as full members of NATO.

  • Publication / Media:
    sputnik
  • Date of publication:
    17/01/2025
  • Target audience:
    Eurosceptics, anti-NATO militants
  • Political affiliation:
    kremlin
  • Key narrative:
    NATO is preparing to recruit “cannon fodder” from the Republic of Moldova and Romania for a possible war against Russia.
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