George Damian: Military guarantees for the Republic of Moldova, drones, the Focșani Gate and lots of noise
Wallachian_GazetteDISCLAIMER: This is a translation of an opinion piece by historian, George Damian, posted on his personal blog, georgedamian.ro on October 10th, 2025.
I do not own this text nor do I make any money from translating and reposting it.
The original can be read, in Romanian, by clicking on the link below:
Between 1914 and 1916 in Bucharest, journalists and newspapers were being bought like crazy to speak in favour of one of the sides fighting in WW1. Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești became infamous for several statements. After the Germans occupied Bucharest, he was detained and brought to the German Army's HQ between bayonets, after which a German intel officer lambasted him that he used the money Germany gave him to write propaganda articles, for his own personal benefit. Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești replied unfased:
"What did you think? That you can buy an honourable man?"
When the war was over, the same individual was interned at the Jilava prison, together with other "traitors" such as Tudor Arghezi and Ion Slavici. Lined up in the prison's courtyard, the prisoners listened to a speech given by a colonel which lambasted them for betraying the country. Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești couldn't help himself and added to what the colonel was saying:
"Mon colonel, I'm not a traitor, I'm a thief!"
That was more than 100 years ago and the Powers involved in the war were buying newspapers for propaganda. But back then things were pretty clear. People knew who was being paid by whom. Now we pretend propaganda narratives do not exist -- or at the very least, that they do not exist. That would be an interesting research, Facebook accounts, news sites and make a qualitative and quantitative analysis to answer a few simple questions: who, what, where, when and how? Why? we will find out soon.
We have on our screens all the image vectors: of Chișinău, Kiev, Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London, Washington D.C. etc. It is not clear where and what is the expertise on Romania's interests. Well, they'll say that Romania's interests overlap completely with the interests of Kiev, Chișinău and that's about it. It is not clear according to the most active vectors if the interests of the Romanians are overlapping with those of Washington and from Brussels comes a lot of noise, we are part of that but it is not clear what else are we doing besides offering unconditional support to Moldova's accession.
On the other hand, all the expertise about Eastern Europe in Romanian public discourse is dominated by the propaganda vectors of Kiev and Chișinău. Romania is being told what and how to do, all that is left is to carry out the tasks at hand and in a timely manner. The public narratives about Chișinău and Kiev are dominated by the propaganda vectors of the two countries and rarely do we see in Romanian newspapers articles who were not vetted by the two governments. The level of analysis boils down to summaries of the public statements made by politicians in Chișinău and Kiev and most of the time we are dealing with a lot of noise that makes no sense.
To get a grip on reality we need to outline the interests of Moldova and Ukraine.
For Kiev, the main goal is to drag other countries into its war against Russia, collectively through NATO or independently. Military and economic aid are not enough for Ukraine to win this war. Ukraine is asking for countries to get involved in one way or another. EU membership is seen like another form of military guarantees (the EU can become a military alliance if needed). We can now see the outline of Ukrainian propaganda in Romania:
Maintaining a public favorable image (and the lack of stories about the rights of the Romanian minority, Bâstroe/Bystroye Canal in the Danube Delta etc.). There are no stories about the internal politics of Ukraine. The Romanian public only ever hears about Zelensky but has no idea what is going on Kiev
The promotion of optimistic outcomes for Ukraine in the war, the repeated use of the "wonder weapons" myth
The amplification of news about Russian drones violating Romanian airspace to the detriment of Romania's military but to the benefit of Ukraine's desire to drag NATO into the war
The "sanctioning" of the naysayers -- look up what happened to former defense minister, Vasile Dîncu, who stated, correctly, that the war in Ukraine will end with negotiations, a statement which led to him being fired because at that moment in time, talks of negotiations with Russia were taboo. The fact that Ukraine started negotiations with Russia later did not matter
For Moldova there are two main interests:
Keeping Ukraine as a buffer state against Russia
An exceedingly fast EU-membership process as a solution for all economic and military problems
Chișinău's propaganda in Romania is overlapping perfectly on the Russia aspect but there are some caveats:
Adhesion to the EU is like a glorious march, unstoppable, everything works smoothly. Chișinău did its job. There are no obstacles. We don't have a real analysis of this process, only government statements taken verbatim.
The discourse is dichotomical, good and bad, the division of society into pro and anti-Europeans, with a monopoly over who is pro-European in Moldova. The pro-Europeans represent a closed caste with a handful having access.
Keeping Moldova's neutral status while obtaining enough security guarantees that do not challenge this status -- the age old desire of Chișinău to be the meek calf which sucks milk from all the cows. From here comes the unrelenting pressure on Romania to offer those guarantees.
We will see a major split between Ukraine and Moldova when the topic of decoupling Ukraine from Moldova's EU membership gets the spotlight. Brussels should have taken a decision at the beginning of September, to start negotiations but it has been continuously delayed. Initially, only Hungary opposed starting negotiations, invoking the rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine, for which the European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood, Marta Kos, visited a bunch of Hungarian schools in Uzhgorod and told Kiev it needs to create an action plan to improve the situation for ethnic minorities.
In Romania no one reported on this as if there weren't Romanian schools in Ukraine (oh wait, most of them have been closed down so the problem is almost gone). Meanwhile a new country opposed to EU membership for Ukraine is The Netherlands and somewhere behind this opposition something in German could be heard. Its not clear what is being said but we know for sure its German. Currently, its comfortable for everyone in Brussels to let Viktor Orban to block Ukraine but he is not alone. In Chișinău everyone thinks EU membership is a done deal by 2028, no one is misled by news from Brussels, Orban is bad and if needed we can move away from Ukraine, we have some guys employed in Chișinău who picked up a part-time job at the European Parliament on behalf of Romania and they'll solve it.
In Romania there's no debate over Moldova's entry into the EU. All we know is that Maia Sandu is the best and we are suffering in silence that she doesn't want to become president in Romania and lead us and we also know that we will reunite with Bessarabia once they enter the EU. The rest is silence. And this is just an example of the difference between propaganda and reality.
Now about the drones. A true media hysteria is caused every time a Russian drone violates Romanian airspace -- a matter which is serious but exploited for propaganda reasons. The drone issue is far simpler. The response to these violations is coordinated with or by NATO but in Romania the debate degenerates to the impotence of the Romanian state, inadequate military, lackluster legislation to absolute hysteria alleging that some in the Romanian state do not wish to provoke Russia. If we look at what the Finnish president said about Russian drones violating Finland's airspace (that being that they won't be automatically shot down instead following a more complex procedure), things become clear.
Not even Poland is quick to shoot down drones. A comparison between what's happening in Poland and Romania should clear things up. The hysteria about drones comes from Chișinău's mouthpieces: they would like a commitment from Romania to shoot down drones/missiles who may fall on Moldova's territory -- of course, while respecting the principle of the meek calf and Moldova's neutrality. Evidently, if things go bad, its Romania's fault but we are used to it. Do not get me wrong. I am in favor of some form of drone/missile shield over Moldova that is led by NATO with Romania's participation, but for this to happen, some decisions need to be made in Chișinău not Bucharest. (...)
The delirium about the Focșani Gate is an unfortunate overlap between Moldovan propaganda and some hysterical people in Iași. Essentially, they claim that the Romanian Army will abandon the city of Iași in case of a Russian invasion, and fight on the Galați-Focșani line. The discussion is exploited propagandistically and amplified artificially and if we look at the primary sources for this discussion we will find a handful of people who make a living complaining about the government. This story is intertwined with the desire of Moldova to receive military & security guarantees from Romania in the form of a shield against 'lost' drones and missiles but these military & security guarantees must first be requested by Moldova, not unilaterally offered by Romania because that would be stupid. We need to differentiate between propaganda and reality.
I hope that I have cleared up somewhat the ongoing debates like the ones mentioned above. We need to find the interests behind the propaganda narratives, what everyone wants and how they are going to get what they want. Of course, there is the other side of the coin where the population is agitated by a feeling of imminent war. Here it is more clear who is the beneficiary of this agitation the only problem is that Romania is not neutral. It is a member of NATO and this is a time when it must respect the commitments it made. The danger for Romania will be real if and when Russia succeeds to subdue Ukraine and turn it into a puppet state like Belarus. We should not be fooled by the noise around us and try to find Romania's interests in this environment.