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At the behest of President Klaus Iohannis and with Parliament’s complicity, Romania will bring troops into the war in Ukraine in the near future, a controversial Romanian deputy claims. The truth is that the president’s information regarding the country’s armed forces, in joint session of the two chambers of the Romanian Parliament, is a rather formal procedure, which takes place every year.
Romanian soldiers and policemen, on the front in Ukraine
NEWS: “Information from the President of Romania, Mr. Klaus Werner Iohannis, on the approval of forces and equipment of the Romanian Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to be sent on missions and operations outside the national territory in 2023. In other words, the President has the duty, it seems, to just inform us that troops belonging to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, namely policemen, gendarmes, and all the structures belonging to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Romanian army, Romanian soldiers, will be deployed abroad. They inform us that they might be sent to war outside the country.
Information from the President of Romania, Mr. Klaus Werner Iohannis, regarding the approval of the entry, stationing and carrying out of operations on Romanian territory by the Spanish detachment of multi-role aircraft, to carry out missions as part of NATO's enhanced vigilance activities. That is, to bring, to introduce Spanish troops and foreign troops into our country, so that NATO can have an enhanced vigilance towards the war in Ukraine. Pretexts, of course. And that although NATO claims to be a peace-keeping, not offensive, but defensive body; but these are just smokescreens.
Information from the President of Romania, Mr. Klaus Werner Iohannis, regarding the approval of the deployment, as need may be, of the NATO response force with very high reaction capacity, for the purpose of preparing and conducting military operations on the territory of Romania. In the year 2023, according to the planning data sent by the NATO authorities. Which means that NATO troops should prepare for war on Romanian territory.
Beware! Draft decision on amending the appendix to the decision of the Romanian Parliament no. 23/2011 on the establishment of the joint commission for European integration between the Parliament of Romania and the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova. So, they want to mix the Parliament of Romania and the Parliament of Moldova together”.
NARRATIVES: 1. The Romanian Parliament endorsed the country’s joining the war. 2. Troops of the Romanian armed forces and the Ministry of the Interior will be sent to fight outside the country's borders. 3. NATO and the EU are preparing the union of Romania with Moldova.
Diana Șoșoacă’s case is not unique in Parliament
CONTEXT: The narrative according to which Romania will be drawn into a NATO – Russia war in Ukraine , and Romanians will be fighting on the front lines, dates back to before the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. It is part of an entire arsenal of fake news and disinformation from Moscow aimed at justifying claims that the West should be blamed for the conflict in Ukraine. Since the outbreak of the war, the Kremlin has played the victim of NATO and the European community, forced to fight a new war “for the defense of the fatherland”. At regular intervals, Russian propaganda launches various false narratives into the public space, which feed the main theses accompanying its aggressive policy in Eastern Europe. Romania's military involvement in the war in Ukraine has been implied before, more precisely in December 2022, by a former American officer, suspected of ties to the KGB, who stated that Romania is participating with thousands of soldiers in the war in Ukraine.
This time, the narrative is resumed by a Romanian parliamentarian, Mihai Ioan Lasca. A member of parliament since 2020, he became known in the public space especially for being convicted for batter and other types of violence, after beating the partner of his ex-girlfriend. He is also accused by DIICOT (Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism) of migrant trafficking on the border with Hungary , reasons for which he was excluded from the party on whose lists he was elected. Although on his website he states that he graduated from a private law school in 2006 (at the age of 26), he did not work until 2017 when, according to his own statements, he founded “a firm providing guard and protection services and services for security systems that I managed to develop very quickly”.
Mihai Ioan Lasca's parliamentary career was marked by several speeches, in which he asked, among other things, for evidence for the existence of the SARS CoV 2 virus and explanations for what the “white lines in the sky” left by planes really are. With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, deputy Lasca became one of the promoters of several fake news of Moscow origin, claiming that Romania's involvement in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is “desired” or that Ukrainian forces shot down a Romanian plane and a helicopter in Dobrogea. Also, in November 2022, he called on the Supreme Defense Council to publicly declare that Romania does not want war. Everything culminated in statements claiming that Russia has not done any harm to Romania in recent years, unlike the West, which “enforces upon us all kinds of very, very bad measures”. Also, in the monologue given in full Parliament session, Lasca described the aggression against Ukraine using Russia’s preferred phrase, namely the “military operation in Ukraine”.
PURPOSE: To help increase anti-Western sentiments by exploiting the fear of part of the population that Romania could be drawn into a war, to amplify anti-Ukrainian sentiments, to use a potential social uprising for electoral purposes.
An information, as mandatory as it may be, is not voted on
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: NATO has repeatedly stated that it does not want to get involved in the war in Ukraine. That is why, before the start of the invasion, the NATO soldiers who were in Ukraine as instructors were urgently withdrawn. Also, the North Atlantic Alliance was careful to avoid any possible incident with Russian forces. Thus, repeated calls by Kyiv to obtain a no-fly zone that would eliminate the threat of Russian aviation have been refused, as NATO does not want a conflict with Russia, which could have dramatic consequences. Instead, it has provided support by pressuring Moscow with sanctions and supplying Ukraine with weapons, ammunition, humanitarian aid and funds. Romania is a full member of NATO, and its reactions are only consistent with the policy of the Alliance and consist in strengthening the deterrence and defense posture on its eastern flank.
According to the Constitution, the President of Romania is the commander of the armed forces and fulfills the function of President of the Supreme Defense Council of the Country, a body which, according to the same Constitution, organizes and unitarily coordinates the activities related to the defense of the country and national security, participation in maintaining international security and collective defense in military alliance systems, as well as in actions to maintain or restore peace. As a result, the president has the obligation to inform Parliament, on a yearly basis, on all these aspects. The purely formal nature of the procedure is, in this particular case, highlighted by the fact that the president will not be present in Parliament, as he is currently paying a formal visit abroad. Moreover, as early as a month ago, the permanent bureaus of the two legislative chambers took note of the three briefings held by President Iohannis, in an online meeting. Their reading in the plenary session of Parliament is just a mere formality.
What deputy Lasca does not know or does not want to say is that, last year, through the same procedure, Klaus Iohannis informed Parliament that the forces of the Romanian army would’ve sent, in 2022, a total of 3,273 soldiers, and the Ministry of the Interior 2,536 employees, in missions and operations outside the national territory, under the leadership of NATO, the EU, the UN and the OSCE. Also, the presence of foreign soldiers on Romanian territory is not a novelty: at the moment, more than 5,500 soldiers belonging to the armies of other states are deployed in the military bases in Mihail Kogălniceanu, Deveselu, Turda or Cincu. Romania’s case is not even singular. Immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine, NATO decided to double the number of battalions on the eastern flank and sent battle groups to Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria as well.
It's obvious that every military in the world trains for war, not beauty pageants, no matter where the training takes place, so to advertise this fact is ridiculous to say the least. And indeed, contrary to the opinion of deputy Lasca, the trainings have a purely defensive purpose. The approval, if necessary, of the intervention of the NATO Response Force with a very high reaction capacity for the purpose of preparing and conducting military operations on the territory of Romania is also a defensive operation. The ultimate argument lies in the name itself: response force – reaction capacity.
The absurd narrative of the forced union between Romania and Moldova has already been debunked by Veridica, and the fact that the parliaments of the two states will form a joint commission does not even remotely mean that the two legislatures will merge. Although he boasts that he is a graduate of law, Mihai Ioan Lasca does not even seem to know that, in general, the parliaments of two or more states can create joint commissions, for cooperation in matters that are common to all the member countries.
Ultimately, it must be said that the main purpose of the joint meeting of the two chambers of the Romanian Parliament was the appointment of the head of the Permanent Electoral Authority, of the president of the National Broadcasting Council and an accountants' advisor, vice-president of the Audit Authority. Also, another item on the agenda of the joint meeting was the appointment of the president of the Permanent Delegation of the Romanian Parliament to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, not, as Lasca understood, “the designation by each Parliament, each party in the Romanian Parliament, of representatives to collaborate with NATO on the territory of Romania”. The secret vote, about which the deputy warned with such emotion in his voice, was intended for the appointments mentioned earlier. An information, regardless who gives or receives it, is just acknowledged, not voted on.
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