Putin planting pro-Russia president in NATO nation
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Alex Dibble and Toby Gillis. Russia's practice of meddling in democratic elections across the world is well known. But in one country, it now appears to be achieving unprecedented success, prompting serious concern in the West. Romania is a NATO member which borders Ukraine.

Now, a pro-Putin, anti-NATO candidate looks likely to win the presidency, having come from nowhere. Last month, Kalin Georgescu won the first round of voting and on Sunday is expected to be voted in in a run-off. Now, Romania's Security Council has declassified documents showing the extent to which Russia impacted voters in favour of Georgescu, describing the campaign as an aggressive hybrid attack.

And if it ends up successful, it could have a significant impact on NATO and indeed Ukraine. We're joined today by Times correspondent Tom Kington, who's covering the election for us. Tom, to what degree do we think Russia impacted voter intentions in Romania?

I think it's important to say that you need to clarify here a little bit because what the Romanians were talking about was, on the one hand, aggressive hybrid Russian attacks during the voting. They then talked about the manipulation of algorithms on TikTok, money being paid online.

to influencers to back Kalin Georgescu, and also computer hacking attacks on election computers there in Romania. All those things happened. In the meantime, they are also talking about hybrid Russian attacks. But what they haven't done is actually

specifically come out and say the Russians were behind all this, though I think that their implication is that they clearly believe it was Russia behind this, but they haven't actually specifically come out and say that.

What they did, however, say is that the hacking attacks on election computers was down to, they consider, a state actor. They said that this, the amount of attacks, they had something like 85,000 attacks on Romania's servers during and just after the voting. They said that that kind of assault, there had to be a state player behind it.

Now, there was a recount of those votes that the hacked computers counted wasn't there. So why, therefore, is there any concern? I mean, it's not as if the computers miscounted.

No, this is the point that the votes were cast by real human beings. What the Romanians are angry about is whether there was such massive manipulation of TikTok that people sort of pushed into voting for Georgescu in an illicit way. Perhaps there was a manipulation of algorithms to the point that he was sort of dominating TikTok and TikTok is very popular in Romania.

In fact, it was said that Georgescu was the ninth top trending name on TikTok in the world during the voting. So that gives an idea of just how he was able to kind of bombard TikTok through fair means or foul. And that is seen as having provided an untoward and unjustified stimulus to voters.

How much of an impact do we think this had then? And surely his politics had to have resonated at least slightly to get people to put an X in Georgescu's box. So how did he campaign? So he was polling extremely low numbers just in the months and even in the weeks before the election. And then, bang, there was this incredible surge of

I was in Romania last week. I interviewed Georgescu. I spoke to quite a lot of people in Bucharest. And I got the feeling that whether or not there was a kind of artificial boost to his presence on social media, which in turn influenced voting, two million people did vote for him, real people. And they have real grievances that he's tapped into.

For example, the runaway inflation in Romania, people have really felt the pinch.

And secondly, resentment against Ukrainian refugees. Now, Romania has a long border with Ukraine and thousands of Ukrainians have poured into the country over the last two years seeking safety. And they have been well looked after by the Romanian government, prompting anger amongst lower income Romanians who have been saying, well, why is that Ukrainian kid getting more bigger benefits than my own kid?

And I think that's what he has tapped into. People who are already struggling with the weekly groceries are seeing Ukrainian kids at school with their own kids who seem to be getting paid more benefits than they are.

The expectation now is that he will win the presidency on Sunday. What power will he have with regards to Romania's position on Ukraine and on NATO? The Romanian presidency isn't as all-encompassing as in the US, for example, is it?

Sure. I think that certainly he can't step in and stop the war tomorrow if he's elected. His position is also slightly vague. When I said to him, look, do you want to get out of NATO? Because that's what's been said in the past. He said, no, no, no, no, we don't want to get out of NATO. We don't want to get out of the EU. But we just, we want to have more room to negotiate. Now, what that means, he wouldn't be clear about.

But what is important is the fact that Romania hosts a large NATO base, which is undergoing expansion. It also hosts the site of an American missile defense system, which he has criticized in the past. So the question would be, if he becomes president, would he push for the base to be downsized? Would he push for the anti-missile system to be dismantled?

And can he do that if he's president? I mean, the president of Romania has some semi-executive powers. He does have power over foreign policy, but the parliament is very much a counterbalance. So it remains to be seen whether he really could call shots over matters like that. The U.S. is already concerned about.

Washington put out a strongly worded statement about the fears of social media manipulation, saying that they were keeping an eye on things and were pretty alarmed. So, you know, the world is watching. And Tom, with regards to Ukraine, it's not really turning Romania into a Belarus style Russia ally, is it?

No, you're right. He only went as far as saying to me when I asked him about Putin and his views on Putin, he said, Putin is a patriot. And then he added, but I also consider Donald Trump a patriot. So he's been quite cagey there. And on the war, he would not be drawn. He simply said, you know, I want the war to end. I said, how would you do that? And he just said,

Let's change the subject. So it's sort of wait and see. He's been deliberately kind of cagey at the moment with interviewers and hoping, I suppose, that he can reveal his cards after he wins the election. Okay.

Okay, Tom Kington, thank you for joining us. The Romania presidential runoff is on Sunday, with most polls at the moment putting Georgescu well over 50% in his battle with pro-European centrist opponent Elena Laskony. If Georgescu wins, it will be another damaging blow to NATO, which has also seen Austria and Hungary adopt a more pro-Russia stance in recent times.

So how should NATO react? Its former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Philip Greenlove, has been speaking about this to Frontline, the Times Radio interview series available on YouTube, which we're partnered with here on The World in 10. Here are his thoughts. Well, we need to be extremely concerned. Russia is fighting. If we don't change our approach, it's not going to go well for us.

I think that, and I know the Romanians very, very well and deeply, and Niko Csuka, a former leader in that country, is now leading a portion of their legislative body. These are rock solid people who have the right intent and understanding of where we are. So it is concerning that a new president has been elected.

or nearly. And I think that we have to address it. And we have to make sure that these efforts that Russia has made to shift the voting population, we need to get in front of that. No one president is going to make a country turn on a dime. But as you know, there are already one or two other countries in NATO that Mr. Putin very much has his thumb on.

And so he's doing what he always wants to do, which is break apart NATO. And now he's working very hard to break NATO apart from the insides.

We're not there yet, but once we take this seriously, we'll begin to do our own work. And that's what we need to think about. That was NATO's former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Philip Greenlove. And that's it for today's World in 10. Thank you for spending 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of the Times. And we'll see you tomorrow.

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