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Ukraine attacked Romania with mines, so NATO should wage war against Kyiv under Article 5, believes the independent senator Diana Sosoaca. But the narrative is false. The mine that the Senator refers to is actually one from WWII, and Ukraine has placed mines only to protect its own shores.
Ukraine attacks Romania with sea mines and excavations in the Danube Delta
NEWS: Senator Diana Iovanovici-Sosoaca, prezident of the S.O.S. România party is calling on NATO to intervene in order to defend Romania, after the Romanian shore of the Black Sea in the city of Constanta was attacked by an Ukrainian mine. […]
By using mines that endanger Romanians’ lives, Ukraine is actually an aggressor state against Romania, and NATO must intervene. After spending so much for Ukraine, paying hard for refugees and bankrupting its own agriculture, Romania is now in danger because of Ukraine’s military actions.
It is not the first time that Ukraine is impacting Romanian citizens’ safety and endangers Romania’s integrity as a state. I want to remind you that a Romanian MiG-21 LanceR was shot down by Ukrainians on March 2, 2022 near the village of Cogealac, 95 km from the border with Ukraine, and the rescue helicopter IAR-300, while on mission, had the same fate. As a result of Ukraine’s aggression, 8 Romanian military lost their lives. Also, Ukraine puts Romania in danger with the illegal and banned works it carries out in the Bastroe Canal, and that is a direct aggression on Romania’s territory and biodiversity, an aggression that is causing irreparable damage.”
NARRATIVE: Romania is the target of an armed aggression by Ukraine.
CONTEXT: Diana Sosoaca, a politician very well known for her anti-Ukraine stand, is calling on NATO to intervene militarily against Ukraine, using as a pretext an incident that occurred on April13, when a Romanian fishing vessel caught in its nets a sea mine, which was later detonated in the Midia Port area, near Constanta.
In order to justify her request, Sosoaca resorts to several pieces of disinformation and fake news debunked over time by Veridica , including the reediting of some propagandistic campaigns aimed at discrediting Ukraine in the Romanian collective mind. Lately, the senator’s public interventions have been mainly directed against Ukraine, after in March 2023 the Robert Lansing Institute think tank claimed that Diana Sosoaca had connections with the Russian military secret services.
She submitted to Parliament a bill providing for the annexaction of territories belonging to Ukraine and intensively promoted the theory according to which, as a result of the war, Romania will lose part of its territory in favour of a future Polish – Ukrainian Federation. Moreover, the senator from Iasi is known as being close to Russia’s ambassador to Bucharest, whose invitations she has honoured every time. In one of the visits she paid to the Kremlin representation, on the 10th of February, the senator celebrated along with the ambassador “Russia’s humanitarian mission in the regions of Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson” .
PURPOSE: To boost anti Ukrainian and by extention anti western sentiments by exploiting the fear of a part of the population that Romania could be attacked; To amplify pro Russian sentiments, to capitalise on a potential social uprising for electoral purposes
Several countries bordering the Black Sea have reported detonations of sea mines
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the Romanian naval forces have intervened 6 times to neutralize sea mines. In total, so far 68 sea mines have been identified and destroyed in the Black Sea by Georgia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania, and obviously Ukraine, but no country has considered those events as aggression on their own territory.
The mine that was neutralized by divers of the Romanian naval forces on April 13 was from the Second World War as shown in the official statement of the General Staff of the Naval Forces and in images captured on the occasion. Also last year, in August, the military navy destroyed a mine from the same period.
During the Second World War, the Romanian and German forces installed in the Romanian waters along the shore more than 20 dams consisting of contact and influence mines as well as explosive and breaking buoys, while at the same carrying out offensive mining in the North and South of the coast. During the same time, the Soviet troops too set up an unknown number of magnetic mine dams.
Although after the war extensive dredging operations were undertaken to clear off the mined areas and restore freedom of navigation, only a small percentage of the mines was recovered and neutralised, due to the fact that many of them were unanchored and displaced by waves. As a result, periodically some of them are brought to the shore by the sea currents. In the 60s of the last century for instance about 20 mines were brought to the surface every year and were later destroyed by specialised teams
As regards the mines placed now by Ukraine, their purpose is a defensive one, given that Russia is also targeting the shores of the aggressed country and has a strong military presence in the Black Sea. The Russian troops have had operations in the Black Sea as well, launching from there attacks against Ukraine and harassing foreign devices or ships that are in or flying over the Black Sea international waters.
In order to make it difficult for a potential sea landing, Ukraine has placed mines along its own coasts and in its territorial waters. Some of these mines may have been pulled out and carried adrift from the territorial waters of Ukraine to international waters or waters belonging to other countries, but if this happens, it does not mean that Ukraine premeditated the act or intended to attack a NATO state.
The assumption is all the more absurd as NATO provides significant assistance to Ukraine. Attacking a NATO state would not only mean putting an end to that aid, but also putting Ukraine in front of a second adversary and thus have Ukraine lose the war.
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