NATO Secretary General and former Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte has asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy to destroy the port of Constanța, which threatens the dominance of the Dutch port of Rotterdam, according to a propaganda account, most likely using a fake identity.
NEWS: “The U.S. must launch an investigation, as this is a BETRAYAL of historic proportions: a NATO member state (Romania) was deliberately targeted by other members of the Alliance in the interest of the Dutch national economic interests.” “[…] According to sources inside the Mihail Kogălniceanu NATO base, the incident was not an accident caused by Russian jamming at all, but a coordinated operation carried out with the complicity of high-ranking officials. According to this theory, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, a Dutch citizen, allegedly agreed with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the context of discussions about an inevitable end to the conflict in Ukraine, to take the port of Constanța out of commercial circulation. The stated reason: to protect Dutch economic interests and benefit the port of Rotterdam.
– The Ukrainian drone was deliberately not intercepted, even though the NATO base at Mihail Kogălniceanu has advanced surveillance capabilities.
– The lighthouses and the port’s lighting system were reportedly turned off that night, facilitating the drone’s entry.
– Orders to “not intervene” and “not intercept” the drone reportedly came from high-level authorities, so that the incident would appear to be an attack by Russia, with the evidence (the drone) disappearing along with the Port of Constanța and half of the city of Constanța.
Zelensky, aware that Russia is stepping up its attacks with Oreshnik hypersonic missiles and that Ukraine’s position on the front lines is rapidly deteriorating (especially in the Donbas), has initiated talks with Putin, but based on the current borders. All parties are aware that Ukraine and the EU will lose the war. In this context, we know that attempts are constantly being made to draw NATO into the conflict, but the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, a long-standing adversary of Romania (he sabotaged our entry into the Schengen Area for years), has also sought to achieve another goal for his country, namely to shut down the Port of Constanța in order to redirect trade flows to the Dutch port of Rotterdam.
NARRATIVE: The Netherlands and Ukraine have conspired to destroy the port of Constanța, which threatens the Dutch economic interests in the port of Rotterdam.
OBJECTIVES: To amplify anti-European, anti-NATO, and anti-Ukrainian sentiments—and implicitly pro-Russian ones—to promote “sovereignist” conspiracy theories, to erode trust in authorities, and to provoke and amplify social tensions.
The Port of Constanța is a threat to the Port of Rotterdam – a narrative promoted by the mouthpiece of Russian propaganda, Sputnik
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: Pro-Russian propaganda continues to exploit the serious security incident that occurred on June 5 in the Port of Constanța, when a Ukrainian drone that had gone out of control exploded at Pier 78 of the Romanian Agency for the Safety of Human Life at Sea (ARSVOM). This time, the manipulation combines two narratives, separated chronologically by nearly a decade, but constantly brought back into the public sphere whenever “it serves their interests.”
The first of these concerns the Netherlands’ almost obsessive desire to eliminate the Port of Constanța from the maritime transport market—a genuine threat to what is currently Europe’s largest port, the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This narrative first emerged in 2012, amid Bucharest’s diplomatic efforts to persuade the Netherlands and Finland to stop blocking Romania’s accession to the Schengen Area. It was launched by Russia’s primary propaganda tool and purveyor of fake news, the publication Sputnik, which was then known as the Voice of Russia. Subsequently, it was picked up and disseminated by various politicians and maritime transport experts. To better understand the absurdity of this narrative, however, we must note that the port of Rotterdam is the tenth largest in the world, while the port of Constanța, although indeed the largest on the Black Sea, appears in international rankings under the category “and others...”. In a ranking of ports based on their direct connections to other transport networks, the port of Constanța ranks 244th in the world, while the port of Rotterdam ranks 13th. Moreover, the current capacity for receiving, handling, and shipping goods at the Port of Constanța lags far behind other European ports, such as Antwerp, Hamburg, Valencia, Algeciras, Piraeus, Marseille, Istanbul, Gdańsk, Le Havre, etc., which are far better positioned to claim European supremacy in an uncertain future. In the pages of Veridica, we explained, in fact, nearly four years ago why this narrative is false and highly manipulative.
Ukraine attacking Romania: another false narrative rehashed by Russian propaganda
The second false claim is the one asserting, even before Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine, that Romania would be drawn into a NATO-Russia war on Ukrainian territory. After the war broke out, this claim was repeated countless times, alleging that Romania was already participating in the war in Ukraine with thousands of troops, according to a secret government-level agreement. Contradicting the first version, Russian propaganda then announced that Romania was preparing to enter the war, only to later claim that our country was being pushed into the conflict in Ukraine by foreign troops stationed on national territory. It all culminated last year, when the “sovereignists” even announced the exact date of Romania’s entry into the war: September 3, 2025. Since this did not happen, two weeks later, Russian propaganda announced once again (!) that Romania was forced to send troops to the war in Ukraine.
Returning to the present moment, we cannot help but note the absurdity of the arguments put forward this time. First of all, the theory of a deliberate attack by Ukraine does not hold water either in the case of the maritime drone in Constanța or in the one involving an aerial drone in Galați. In fact, this theory is not new either. In April 2023, Diana Șoșoacă—then a senator, now a Member of the European Parliament, and a frequent visitor to Russia—claimed that Ukraine had attacked Romania with a naval mine drifting in Romanian territorial waters.
This isn’t the first time we’ve said it, but we feel compelled to repeat that Ukraine cannot afford to alienate its allies, especially now that the balance of the conflict has become uncertain. Kyiv is heavily dependent on the political, military, and economic support of NATO member states, including Romania. A deliberate attack on an ally’s territory would pose a huge risk. If discovered, it would seriously compromise diplomatic relations and could reduce Western support at a critical moment for Kyiv. For this reason, the scenario makes no sense from either a military or a political standpoint.
An argument straight out of a fairy tale
Second, we know for certain that since his election on October 1, 2024, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at least 30 times, both in bilateral meetings and at NATO–Ukraine or Coalition of the Willing meetings. Given that “Ukraine’s position is rapidly deteriorating on the front lines,” such a radical decision should have been made long ago, not now at the “last minute.” But even this assumption is not accurate. Ukraine’s position is not deteriorating; on the contrary, there are voices, including among Russian military bloggers, claiming that Kyiv’s forces have not been on the passive defensive for some time now, but are regaining the initiative more and more often. Thus, according to analyses by the DeepState portal, for the first time since its 2023 counteroffensive, Ukraine gained more territory than it lost in May. Furthermore, Ukrainian attacks against Russian oil infrastructure are intensifying by the day and becoming increasingly effective. Moreover, the claim that “Russia is intensifying attacks with Oreshnik hypersonic missiles” is a fabrication with no basis in reality. The Oreshnik is still an experimental weapon, extremely expensive, and in limited supply. It is used more for strategic effect and testing than for daily bombardments, so it is difficult to speak of an “intensification” of attacks with this type of missile.
Finally, the assumption that “all parties are aware that Ukraine and the EU will lose the war,” aside from creating the false impression that the European Union is a belligerent party, has absolutely no factual basis. Moreover, Zelensky’s initiative to propose direct dialogue with Putin is not the first of its kind. In May 2025, the Ukrainian leader supported the idea of a meeting in Istanbul to discuss ending the war, but Putin refused to participate—an attitude he has repeated in this year’s situation, under the pretext that Zelensky is feigning peace initiatives to deceive the West and continue the war against Russia. The Ukrainian president’s statement in the cited letter, which says that “today’s front line is where diplomacy must begin,” refers to the proposal for a ceasefire and a freeze of the front lines along current positions (which are not “borders”), not to unconditional territorial concessions.
Technically speaking, the claims made by Russian propaganda are simply blatant lies
The “technical” arguments purported to demonstrate Ukraine’s bellicose intent regarding the explosion in Constanța do not hold up even to a cursory analysis. Thus, there is absolutely no public or “sourced” information confirming that Air Base 57 at Mihail Kogălniceanu possesses the technical capabilities to intercept and monitor maritime drones. The unit in Constanța County, as its name suggests, possesses advanced aerial surveillance capabilities and is integrated into the NATO network for detecting and tracking aerial targets (aircraft, missiles, aerial drones). But even assuming that Base 57 has the capabilities to closely monitor maritime traffic in the area, intercepting a maritime drone typically requires naval assets, helicopters, its own maritime drones, or naval weaponry, as this is not a typical mission for an air base per se. In Romania, the monitoring of maritime traffic and activities primarily involves the Romanian Naval Forces, the Coast Guard, maritime authorities, and coastal sensor networks. An air base can support this effort through aircraft, drones, radars, or data sharing, but it is not equivalent to a naval maritime surveillance centre.
Furthermore, the claim that the port lighting systems were deliberately taken out of service is as false as it is absurd. First of all, official sources from port authorities have confirmed to Veridica that the night-time lighting of the Port of Constanța is not centrally coordinated; each operator has its own lighting systems, which would require perfect synchronization among multiple entities to turn off the lights simultaneously—a nearly impossible feat. Furthermore, the lighthouses located at the ends of the breakwaters and the lighted buoys operate autonomously and can only be turned off individually by physically being inside or near them, which would take a long time to turn them all off and could allow someone to notice the irregularities during the operation. However, even in the absurd scenario that all lighting devices in the port had been turned off, the situation would not have changed at all, because their light is not intended to improve visibility in the port, but strictly to guide vessels docking at the pier.
Finally, the invocation of orders not to intervene coming “from high up,” as well as the phrase “sources inside the Mihail Kogălniceanu NATO base” (who know what Mark Rutte and Volodymyr Zelensky discussed), is a typical expression of conspiracy-theory rhetoric, based on undefined authority and a lack of verifiability, used as a “universal explanation” for complex events in the absence of clear evidence.
A Facebook account created specifically to spread false narratives
CONTEXT: After nearly every major event related to the war in Ukraine, the public sphere is flooded with narratives attempting to shift responsibility from Russia to Ukraine or to the West. Often, these theories spread before technical investigations are completed and exploit public mistrust, emotion, and the confusion of the moment. However, the fact that a hypothesis is circulating widely online does not automatically make it credible. “The Ukrainian problem” and “the evil West” remain among the main themes of debate in the Romanian media, which is inundated with Moscow-inspired sovereignist propaganda.
The account that launched the narrative we are examining today was created on March 26, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. For three months, it posted poems by Eminescu, folk songs, and compositions by George Enescu conducted by Sergiu Celibidache, as well as photos of traditional Romanian blouses and picturesque landscapes from the country. On June 29, 2020, it shared a “documentary” denouncing the theft of Romanian timber by the Austrians at Schweighofer, followed shortly thereafter by a post lamenting the Romanian authorities’ indifference toward national history, because they had not organized any event to commemorate the Romanian army’s victory at Mărășești in July 1917. Starting in September 2020, the profile has turned into a mouthpiece for sovereignist propaganda, initially fighting against the “health dictatorship,” ticking off nearly all existing conspiracy theories regarding the pandemic, and later against Ukraine, NATO, and the European Union, echoing all Russian-origin narratives related to Moscow’s invasion of its neighbouring country.
All of his posts are consistently laced with Orthodox Christian proselytism and Ceaușescu-inspired nationalist propaganda, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and anti-LGBTQ+ views, to the extent that we can confidently state that none of the false narratives debunked in the pages of Veridica, from its inception to the present day, has been missed. Furthermore, to support our conclusion that the profile is fake, we must note that both the profile picture (a drawing with an indistinct face) and its cover photo (a blue sky above sand dunes) have remained unchanged since the beginning, never having been modified. Additionally, Cristian Roman, a “Constanta native,” claims to have graduated from “University of Bucharest” high school, an educational institution where he allegedly also completed his higher education; these are the only details available on his profile. Finally, we note that, aside from promoting Russian propaganda, Cristian has absolutely no interests, liking no business pages or profiles, not even those of the “colleagues” whose posts full of “Russian wisdom” he eagerly shares.
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