‘Declassified extract from Report 0654 of November 28, 2024.’
Romania’s foreign intelligence service, the SIE, says a hostile foreign state or states, later identified by the country’s president as Russia, had one aim: to undermine Romania’s democracy and political system.
In an act of hybrid warfare, the Kremlin meticulously laid the ground for a multi-pronged attack on the NATO and EU member, the report reveals, Spotmedia reported on Saturday.
At the very least, Russia actively supported Calin Georgescu, the radical independent and anti-Western presidential candidate who came first in the Nov. 24 presidential election. The result shook Romania’s political establishment and eventually led to the cancellation of the elections.
Four days after the 62-year-old soil scientist’s improbable first-round win, Romania’s top defense council met to share intelligence on the election and the result, considered to be an attack on Romania’s national security and its post-Communist European trajectory.
On December 4, President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence reports for the general public to reveal ‘complex and subtle’ manipulation by a foreign actor on the election. Initially he did not mention Russia_something he eventually did on December 18. Two days later after the reports were declassified, the country’s top court canceled the election, a development that was praised by Romania’s Western partners but also caused unease and drew criticism.
The foreign intelligence report that led to the annulment of the election begins with the word “Russia”, in response to the question: ‘Who is the foreign state actor that interfered in the electoral process?’
The report reads: “Russia has a history of interfering in electoral processes in other states. If in the ex-Soviet space Russia was and is quasi-present through hostile actions of influence, in the West, the involvement has become much more evident since the US presidential election in 2016,” the foreign document reads.
DEFENSELESS
Defenseless in the face of hybrid warfare, Russia … has focused on informational attacks, including propaganda, and the use of artificial intelligence for rapid content creation, the SIE document says.
Social media networks have been flooded with fake pages, fake images, fake messages. Professional groups on Facebook and WhatsApp have been hijacked, transformed into pro-Russian propaganda hubs, without the slightest reaction from state institutions.
Romania has no defense strategy to counteract hybrid warfare. Meanwhile, Russia has consistently pushed to reach the widest possible audience, by expanding its online infrastructure (a varied portfolio of dissemination channels: local vectors, opinion makers and troll networks) and diversifying the techniques for spreading (pro-Russian) narratives, with a focus on their distribution at the local level, the SIE document reads.
It reports strong networks in Romania which promote the Kremlin’s interests.
The document also indicates dissatisfaction with Romania’s strategic partners in intelligence, in terms of helping with defense against hybrid attacks.
On.Dec. 18, President Iohannis said that the U.S. came to Romania’s aid after the first round of the election. “We had significant support from strategic partners, who helped Romanian entities to discover what happened,” he told reporters during a visit to Brussels.
DETAILS
Document 0654 is headlined: “Analysis of national security risks generated by the actions of state and non-state cyber actors on IT&C infrastructures in the electoral process”.
In the initially classified report, the SIE says.
- The SIE recognizes the existence of risks to national security about which, until then, no politician with access to intelligence reports has spoken:
- The risks to Romania’s security are generated by state cyber actors. That is, on the territory of the country there are people, groups and organizations subordinated to foreign governments, whose objective is to make Romania’s political and democratic system vulnerable.
- In addition to “state actors”, there are also non-state entities, i.e. individuals and organizations, which are thought to be connected to the former, with the same purpose.
- The declassified SIE document is just an “extract” from a much more extensive report that was presented and made available to the Government and the President at the Supreme National Defense Council on November 28. “Under orders from the Kremlin, detailed sociological research of the target states was carried out (trends in public opinion, political perspectives of certain parties/candidates, measures taken by the authorities against foreign electoral interference) and the legislative framework of the target states was studied in order to identify breaches/vulnerabilities and the capacity to respond,” the document says.
The final paragraph also indicates Romania’s lack of preparedness in protecting its electoral system, suggesting Bucharest did not take action against the “breaches” identified by Russia.
The SIE report is important in regards to Romania’s Nov. 24 elections as it is the only one of five declassified reports that indicates that Russia interfered with Romania’s presidential election.
CRITICISM OF THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Gabriel Vlase, the director of the SIE, traveled in a private jet to watch a Formula 1 race in Baku, Azerbaijan after the publication of the declassified reports. He claimed it was a business trip, but the optics look bad and Iohannis has taken no action. Trust in the intelligence agencies is low and the trip further undermined their reputation.
