Independent Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu believes that the "Mihail Cogalnicanu" military base in Constanta, which will become the largest NATO military base in Europe, will be used as a springboard for starting a war against Russia.
"We cannot allow this to happen", he said.
Georgescu made this statement in an interview with former US Navy SEAL Sean Ryan. A video of the conversation was posted by Georgescu on Facebook and on the website of the Romanian television channel Digi 24.
“Is the international community pretending not to see what is happening in Romania, or does it have a direct interest in Romania being used as a detonator for a dangerous precedent?“ - he said. “No one has the right to play with peace and democracy!“
“What is happening now in Romania and the fact that there is no reaction abroad, especially in the United States, shows that they do not understand what is happening here, because if they use Romania as a gateway to enter the war... What comes next? We do not need a war.”
“So this NATO base will be used to launch a major offensive in Russia,” Ryan said in turn. “That's exactly it. We can't agree. Because it's not our business. This is not our war“, Georgescu replied. “Romania is being pushed into the war.“
This is not the first time Georgescu has put forward the hypothesis of a war against Russia that would start from Romania, Digi 24 notes.
He won the first round of the Romanian presidential election on November 24, 2024, with 22.94% of the vote. Second place with a result of 19.18% went to the leader of the center-right Union for the Salvation of Romania, Elena Lasconi. They were supposed to be rivals in the second round of the election on December 8, but two days before that, Romania's Constitutional Court annulled the entire electoral process and ordered a rerun.
This decision was made after Romanian intelligence services declassified documents alleging that Georgescu illegally financed his election campaign, that there were hacker attacks on the digital infrastructure used in the election process, and that Russia carried out hybrid actions against the republic".
Both Georgescu and Lasconi strongly criticized the Constitutional Court's decision and demanded a second round of voting. The Bucharest Court of Appeal rejected Georgescu's appeal, which he is trying to appeal.
Meanwhile, the leaders of Romania's ruling coalition, consisting of the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, decided to hold repeat presidential elections on May 4 (first round) and May 18 (possible second).