Much like the rest of Europe, Romania will be drawn into a war due to restrictions imposed to curb the coronavirus pandemic, reads a narrative promoted by the Kremlin’s mouthpiece, Sputnik.
NEWS: “In an analysis for Corectnews, Sorin Roșca Stănescu notes how cities are closing down, one by one, starting with Bucharest, with the risk of now witnessing long periods of time where only vaccinated people will be allowed to move around the city freely […] Representatives of the ruling party, PNL, the very one who get to decide on the restrictions imposed on millions of citizens, will violate them live on TV, and stations everywhere will broadcast the images of their wrongdoings. A huge fraud happening under our very eyes”, SRS writes about an event that brought together 5,000 guests. In other words, the analyst argues, Romania’s entire political class and administration, the very ones who impose restrictions on Romanians, led by president Klaus Iohannis himself, will be violating these restrictions for the whole country to see […] The analyst, however, claims Romania and Europe are standing on a gunpowder keg, and all these developments are starting to disquietly resemble everything this planet has witnessed until the tragic end of the Second World War”, Sputnik writes.
NARRATIVE: Romania will be drawn into a war due to the new COVID-related restrictions imposed on the population.
BACKGROUND: The PNL Congress held last weekend, with the participation of some 5,000 delegates from all over the country, did not observe a number of health safety and physical distancing restrictions, which most media outlets covering the event have reported.
There’s another precedent of the former Prime Minister, Ludovic Orban, who invited a number of politicians and colleagues for a private party in his office in July 2020, as the pandemic was wreaking havoc, and none of his guests wore face masks or observed social distancing.
At the same time, the number of new coronavirus infections has been rising steadily (exceeding ten thousand every day in the last week of September), listing Romania as one of the regional countries with the highest infection rates.
For the time being, authorities have made tentative statements about introducing mandatory vaccination for certain categories of people, and started restricting access to public areas or events only to those who haven’t taken the vaccine. Romania has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, standing at merely 27.44% of the total population, accounting for 5.32 million people as of September 28, despite the country’s huge stocks of vaccines.
The low immunization rate is largely owing to societal distrust in the authorities, in turn caused by the government’s contradictory measures, and partly boosted and driven by a widespread anti-vaccination campaign. For its most part, the latter spreads disinformation and false narratives launched by Russia and China, and to a lesser extent certain alt-right narratives from the United States.
Anti-vaxx sentiment and the mandatory character of vaccination are not inherent just to Romania, being commonplace in several other countries, along with anti-vaccination protests. These protests are yet to trigger major changes in government policy in the field of healthcare, and have always been isolated in scale. The risk of them being followed up by revolutions that would topple governments or lead to global-scale conflicts was always out of the question.
PURPOSE: To stir up disgruntlement at society level and induce outrage against the authorities.
WHY IS THE NARRATIVES FALSE: The introduction of restrictions is one epidemiological measure that is required in the case of unvaccinated people who pose a higher risk of spreading the disease.
The fact that politicians don’t abide by the rules and provide a poor example for the rest of society should not lead to civil unrest or revolutions, but to their being held accountable. In fact, in 2020, when the former Prime Minister Ludovic Orban did not observe restrictive measures, he was fined like any other ordinary citizen. The event is a far cry from revolutions and wars, with the use of terms such as “gunpowder” or alarming messages about the start of a new world war. At best, popular unrest might lead to internal changes at national level, certainly not to global wars. Besides, the disgruntlement of those who oppose health safety restrictions is channeled first and foremost against domestic, not foreign governments.
Such ideas fit the typical narratives traditionally employed by Russian propaganda, which emphasize isolated uprisings and incidents in Europe caused by the opposition of certain groups towards pandemic-related restrictions.
In November, 2020, Thomas Haldenwang, the president of the “Verfassungsschutz”, the German federal intelligence service, presented a report concerning security threats in Germany, claiming that “the website of Russia Today Deutsch and the Sputnik news agency promoted the so-called Hygienedemos, subsequently overinflating them”.
Moreover, the German official said that such anti-restrictions protests are helping boost the election score of extremist parties and that the number of politically-motivated crimes is equally on the rise. Russia Today and Sputnik, the official channels of Russian propaganda, are helping encourage such attitudes amongst the discontented segments of the population.
Sputnik Moldova-Romania is regularly publishing such provocative stories and commentaries, which are subsequently disseminated on social media, particularly on Facebook. The messages address the Romanian audience unhappy with how things are progressing at home regarding the COVID pandemic, and fuel conspiracy theories and anxiety at society level.
Veridica.ro has repeatedly signaled the fact that columnist and former director of ZIUA newspaper, Sorin Roșca Stănescu, who was handed a prison sentence, is relentlessly promoting Russian propaganda themes and well-targeted narratives. Furthermore, there’s an entire media network that share this kind of narratives among themselves in order to boost the effect of propaganda. The list includes Sputnik, CorectNews, Inpolitics, Ion Cristoiu’s blog, and even Evenimentul Zilei, etc.
GRAIN OF TRUTH: The PNL Congress, held on September 25, did not observe health safety restrictions imposed against the backdrop of a resurge of COVID infections.
WHO STANDS TO BENEFIT: The Kremlin and populist and extremist political factions in Romania, which capitalize on the health and political crisis at home.
