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Outrage as leading Romanian presidential candidate calls Ukraine ‘a fictional state’

Călin Georgescu. EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

Călin Georgescu. EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

Far-right Romanian presidential candidate Călin Georgescu has sparked outrage in Kyiv by calling Ukraine a “fictional state” and claiming that the partition of its territory at the end of the war would be “inevitable”.

In an interview with Romanian journalist Ion Cristoiu posted to YouTube on Wednesday, Georgescu referred to Ukraine as “the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic”, echoing Vladimir Putin’s claims in the run-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion that Ukraine was the creation of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and had never previously existed as an independent state.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhiy Tyhiy on Thursday described Georgescu’s comments as “a manifestation of extreme disrespect for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people”, adding that Georgescu’s attempts “to position himself as an ‘independent’ politician look absurd”, and that his comments indicated his “complete dependence on his masters in Moscow”.

In a post on X on Thursday, the Romanian Foreign Ministry “strongly reiterated” its unwavering support for “Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence within its internationally recognised borders”.

Despite being a virtual unknown before Romania’s presidential election in late November, Georgescu won more votes than any other candidate in the first round of voting, securing a totally unexpected 23% of the vote that took him through to the second round run-off against Elena Lasconi, the leader of the liberal pro-European Save Romania Union party.

However, Romania’s top court annulled the election results in December amid intelligence reports of “aggressive” hybrid attacks being launched at the country by Moscow as well as a Russian bot campaign on TikTok. Both candidates condemned the Constitutional Court’s decision to annul the results of the first round, with Lasconi calling it “an affront to the very essence of democracy”.

While a rerun of the presidential election has now been scheduled for May, Georgescu continues to lead the race according to opinion polls, with some 38% of voters saying that they planned to vote for him.

Members of the current coalition government, which comprises the Social Democrats, the National Liberal Party, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, and various minority parties, have agreed to field a single candidate in May, former Liberal Party leader Crin Antonescu, to improve their chances of winning, Reuters reported.

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