This month, US Vice President JD Vance compared allegations of Russian Interference in Romania’s presidential elections to minor infractions.
“If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” he said derisively.
Romanian intelligence has disputed Vance’s assertion that the interference was nothing more than a negligible social media advertising campaign.
They provided a dossier revealing the campaign deployed AI tools and cyber warfare tactics to orchestrate a “fake grassroots” movement, Artvoice said in article.
The candidate who benefited from the artifice was Calin Georgescu, whose smoke and mirrors campaign and foreign interference led to the elections being canceled two days before the runoff.
Across platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, pro-Georgescu content flooded timelines, amassing millions of views overnight, the US publication which covers politics,news, art news and opinion reported.
Romanian intelligence analysis was supported by a coalition of international partners, including NATO, the UK, Canada, Ukraine, Estonia, and the European Commission, which deployed Osavul, an AI-powered information threat detection tool, to analyze Georgesecu’s online campaign.
Osavul identified that over 85% of Georgescu’s online campaign content originated from fake profiles, bots, and AI-generated videos—manipulating social media algorithms to amplify pro-Georgescu narratives.
Between 2022 and 2023, a network of 20,321 fake accounts emerged to engage in online discourse in favor of Georgescu.
These accounts flooded social media platforms with over 2.1 million pro-Georgescu comments starting on November 23, 2024, just a day before the first round of voting.
The network’s operations were traced back to Russian email domains like rambler.ru, and naming templates for fake profiles followed a uniform structure, such as “ushakov.” or “aleksandrov.” with random alphanumeric sequences.
One of the most important campaign supporters was Elena Shmeleva co-manager of Vladimir Putin’s 2018 presidential campaign, who partnered with Roland Schatz in the Russian formed LLC Media Tenor established to collect data on the impact of media (including social media) on the population in Eastern Europe. Schatz is credited with helping the shadowy outsider Georgescu on the world stage.
Georgescu was affiliated with Schatz’s sound-alike United Nations Global Sustainable Index Institute (UNG), an entity with no ties to the UN.
Schatz, the founder of the United Nations Global Sustainable Index Institute, is not related to the actual United Nations
Schatz gave Georgescu the title of director of the UNGSII foundation from July 9, 2016, to December 14, 2016.
Georgescu wrote in his CV that he was executive director and special advisor to the director general of the UN office in Geneva. Instead, he was executive director of Schatz’s fake United Nations Global Sustainable Index Institute,
Similarly, he never held an official membership in the Club of Rome, as he claimed. In fact, he was associated with the sound-alike Friends of the Club of Rome Romania, a group not affiliated with the Club of Rome.
Georgescu also said he was a secretary for Mircea Maliț, of the Black Sea University Foundation.
Malița’s daughter says that Georgescu is lying when he claims that he was the academician’s secretary though the two knew each other.
Fake ‘UN Whistleblower’ Narrative
From October 13 to November 6, 2024, Georgescu claim that he was a United Nations whistleblower fighting an “international pedophile ring” circulated across multiple platforms emerged.
Posts sharing this narrative were identical word-for-word and distributed by 10 Russian-linked X accounts, accumulating over 103,000 reactions.
Data analysis showed that these 100,000 plus reactions did not represent real user engagement, as the post had been viewed only three times before being artificially boosted.
The TikTok campaign promoting Georgescu, also included 25,000 fake TikTok pro-Georgescu accounts becoming active shortly before the election.
Surge in Daily Activity
On November 1, 2024, the daily pro-Georgescu posts generated by fake accounts skyrocketed to 1,100 per day, compared to fewer than 100 posts daily in the preceding weeks—a growth driven entirely by artificial amplification and bot accounts.
Beyond comment flooding, these fake accounts engaged in controlled Facebook groups with fake members that positioned Georgescu as a grassroots-independent voice with widespread public support.
Investigators demonstrated that the profile pictures attached to these fake accounts were from Russian platforms lok.ru, mamba.ru, and ru.pinterest.
The images used for the fake profiles were from Russian websites (ok.ru, mamba.ru, ru.pinterest, ozon.ru).
Osavul’s analysis extended beyond social media manipulation, uncovering 85,000 cyberattacks, traced back to Russian state actors, struck at Romania’s digital election infrastructure during the campaign.
These attacks ranged from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) operations aimed at disrupting voter registration systems to malware infiltrations designed to compromise critical election data.
Kremlin’s Hand in the Campaign
Investigations uncovered that it was not exclusively AI. There were humans involved.
Editors at pravda-en.com and pravda-es.com published pro-Georgescu content.
The content creators at Telegram channel “IrinamarZ,” a Russian network, lauded Georgescu.
Romanian Georgiana Arsene, administrator of the Facebook group “Friends of Vladimir Putin,” produced content amplifying Georgescu role on social media.
Editors at pro-Russian channels such as Țarigrad TV, Naspravdi, and KP.MD, provided content.
Romanian Bogdan Peschir produced content and was the conduit of money, some of it in cyrpto currency, “donating” $1 million for Georgescu’s campaign on TikTok, along with additional payments to 100 influencers to post in favor of Georgescu.
Other influential supporters of Georgescu include:
- Alexey Komov of the World Congress of Families a Kremlin-backed organization designed to infiltrate conservative networks in the U.S. and Europe and Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev.
- Petre Racanel, a former Romanian diplomat turned pro-Kremlin operative.
- Ilan Sor, a Moldovan fugitive in Moscow
- Igor Dodon, a pro-Kremlin Moldovan politician
- Horatiu Potra, a Russian intelligence operative, and mercenary with African military operations aligned with former ambassador Valeri Kuzmin;
- Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov who generously lent his bodyguard Adrian Mandea to protect Georgescu
- The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency through Constantin Bogdan Vacusta of “The Young Crows”
The radical Georgescu emerged frontrunner winning 22.9% of the vote and defeating well known politicians Elena Lasconi and Marcel Ciolacu, who trailed with 19.17% and 19.15% respectively.
Two days before the second round of voting, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the presidential election.
