Lately it has become hard to shake the sense that societies are forgetting not only the distant past but also the warnings of the recent one. These thoughts come to mind when you see how modern autocrats, without any hesitation and with a frankly sluggish reaction from the world community, quite easily deal with any opposition that relies exclusively on peaceful and democratic ways to change the situation in the country. The recent demonstrations in Georgia and the failed 2020 effort to unseat Belarus’s entrenched ruler are a case in point.
These reflections—along with memories of the 1989 Nicolae Ceaușescu’s fall and the dramatic events of Ukraine’s 2013–2014 Maidan, which sent Viktor Yanukovych’s criminally corrupt regime fleeing toward Russia’s Rostov—fall naturally into place to the steady clatter of the Kyiv–Bucharest train, a route that has recently become another passage from war-scarred Ukraine into the European Union.
So what, then, is Romania today—this close our neighbor in the region of Central/Eastern Europe that has undergone rapid, multifaceted change in recent years and now seems to surprise, and at times disappoint, many in Ukraine?
After this year’s runoff victory by the pro-European candidate Nicușor Dan, an advocate of reform, the rule of law, and support for Ukraine, one would still be hard-pressed to call the country’s political landscape absolutely stable. Some differences persist within the governing coalition, while the anti-Western forces—drawing most of their support from rural regions—are likely preparing for a comeback.
Even so, September polling reveals a striking clarity in Romanian public opinion. Roughly 90 percent of Romanians support NATO membership (compared with just 31 percent in Hungary and 41 percent in Slovakia). Eighty-six percent back increased defense spending and modernization of the armed forces, which themselves enjoy the trust of 78 percent of the public. Seventy-six percent say they would defend their country if attacked.
Views on Ukraine are more divided. While 43 percent support military assistance to Kyiv, 74 percent back only the supply of equipment and weapons. At the same time, 62 percent believe such deliveries prolong the war, and 53 percent worry they could provoke Russia. Even so, 52 percent consider Ukraine’s membership in the European Union beneficial for Romania.
Meanwhile, only half the population trusts mainstream media, and just 10 percent rely on them as a primary source of information—the lowest share in the EU. Unsurprisingly, belief in conspiracy theories stands at 57 percent, the highest level in the Union. Moscow has clearly sought to exploit this vulnerability, monitoring the rise of new political forces, shifts in public sentiment, levels of trust in state institutions, the preferences of Romania’s sizable diaspora, and developments within the Romanian Orthodox Church, while pairing this effort with direct interference in Romania’s domestic affairs — most visible through the recent expulsion of several Russian «diplomats» for their ties to local far-right populists.
Since February 2022, Romania has emerged within NATO as a key route for delivering military assistance to Ukraine, a role that has deepened the broader security relationship between the two countries. Kyiv and Bucharest now maintain active defense cooperation: Romania continues to expand training programs for Ukrainian personnel on its territory—from F-16 pilots to marines—and is pursuing additional collaboration through the EU’s SAFE (“Security and Action for Europe”) mechanism, a €150-billion instrument designed to strengthen Europe’s defense capacity. At its core, SAFE provides long-term loans for defense projects in member and partner states, making Ukraine one of its principal beneficiaries. At the same time, the Ukraine-Romania bilateral relations have broadened well beyond security, extending into political, cultural, humanitarian, transport, and professional spheres.
Overall, the course of the Ukraine–Russia war has underscored the increasingly critical importance of broad international coordination across a range of pressing defense issues—from unmanned aerial systems, including missile-capable platforms, and the urgent modernization of air-defense networks based on advanced technologies —to the creation of an interstate belt of enhanced airspace monitoring along a notional line from Norway’s Tromsø to Turkey’s Trabzon. It seems this also creates an area for a productive bilateral Ukrainian-Romanian interstate dialogue.
by Oleh Bielokolos,
Director, Center for National Resilience Studies