A threat to one's own: Romania's toxic pro-Kremlin presidential candidate
The only pro-Russian candidate in the Romanian presidential campaign (after Kelin Georgescu was excluded from the race because of his too obvious, too open ties to the Kremlin) is George Simion. And regardless of whether he becomes president of Romania or not, he was, is and will be dangerous for Ukraine and Romanians in Ukraine.
As you know, Simion and other top leaders and representatives of the A.U.R. party are banned from entering Ukraine. Simion was banned (he is also banned from entering the Republic of Moldova) because he met with some FSB agents in Chernivtsi and with FSB agents in Chisinau during the Yanukovych regime.
The purpose of these meetings was ostensibly to coordinate the unionist movements in Moldova and Ukraine, especially in Moldova, where the majority of the country's inhabitants are of Romanian origin (Moldovans), but in fact the real goal was to destabilize both Moldova and Ukraine at key political moments in these countries.
When the war broke out, in the first days of the invasion, Simion's A.U.R. party went to Chernivtsi and, under the pretext of humanitarian aid to the Romanian minority in Northern Bukovyna, tried to conduct unionist agitation, to create a feeling among Romanian-Ukrainians that the Russian-Ukrainian war was not their war, that their homeland was Romania, not Ukraine, that ethnic Romanians who joined the Ukrainian armed forces would allegedly die in someone else's war.
There have been and continue to be attempts to turn Romanians against Ukrainians, to create and incite false interethnic conflicts that do not exist.
In addition, all the aid they sent to Chernivtsi was discriminatory and targeted only Romanians, who were mostly safe and far from the front, and not Eastern Ukrainian refugees in western Ukraine.
Moreover, in nationalist circles and organizations close to Simion and A.U.R., now or in the past, there have been calls to grant Northern Bukovina a special autonomous status only for the sake of the Romanian minority, which makes up less than 20% of the total population (Ukrainians make up more than 75% of the population of the Chernivtsi region and were the most numerous in northern Bukovina even in 1918, when all of Bukovina was ceded to Romania).
These demands for autonomy are almost similar to the demands made by Hungarian nationalist circles in relation to Transcarpathia.
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In Ukraine, besides Simion, there are other individuals under ban, such as the famous Diana Shoshoake, a former member of A.U.R., or Claudiu Tirziu, a former party ideologist and now a member of the European Parliament. All of them have been working intensively for many years, especially since the beginning of Russia's war against Ukraine, to discredit Ukraine at home and abroad. Both Shoshoake (she demanded louder and more specific) and Tirziu (he demanded more metaphorical, more sophisticated) called for the dismemberment of Ukraine and the annexation of Romania
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But even the demands for autonomy are not the most radical – as I said, some characters associated with the A.U.R., under the slogan of protecting the linguistic rights of the Romanian minority in Ukraine, which is quite legitimate, demand an unjustified expansion of the status of the Romanian language in Northern Bukovyna, again to the detriment of the majority Ukrainian population, as well as to the detriment of other ethnic groups in the Chernivtsi region. Apparently, the time is not far off when they will simply demand that the region be Romanized, and that all Ukrainians, Jews and Poles be taught Romanian, so that the Romanian language can be used as a language of instruction
Another interesting aspect is the proposal of the Romanian Orthodox Church, probably under the influence of certain pro-Russian circles in the A.U.R. (Simion is now very respected in the Romanian Orthodox Church and has been invited to a number of events), to create a structure of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which would include all churches and parishes of the Romanian minority belonging to the ROC MP in Ukraine.
This is not a bad proposal, especially since it is intended to remove Romanian believers from the influence of Kirill. However, it appeared almost out of nowhere, out of the blue. And there was no serious discussion or debate about its implementation in Romania or Ukraine. And again, this proposal does not take into account the opinion of Ukraine and the Romanian minority in Ukraine: whether it really wants to be part of the Romanian Orthodox Church or whether it wants to become part of the autocephalous OCU?
Of course, all this should be resolved in Kyiv, Odesa and Chernivtsi, not in Bucharest or Simion's office.
In addition to this, it should be noted that the aggressive nationalist rhetoric promoted by the pro-Russian Simion and people around him risks jeopardizing honest, sincere, bona fide, humanitarian, material, cultural or educational assistance coming from Romania and the Republic of Moldova to Romanian brothers in Ukraine.
From Romania and Moldova, the Romanian community of Ukraine, both from Northern Bukovyna and Odesa region, receives various aid in the form of textbooks, books, clothes, etc. This aid, which is not related to politics and is sent by Orthodox, public organizations, is sincere help from people who respect Ukraine, its territorial integrity, and should not be confused with pseudo-aid coming from pro-Russian nationalists.
However, this assistance may be jeopardized by characters like Simion orȘoșoaca. Simion, whether he wins the second round of the presidential election of the pro-European Nicușor Dan, the mayor of Bucharest, or not; whether he becomes president or not; was, is, and will be dangerous for Ukraine, for Romanian-Ukrainian relations, for Ukrainians and Romanians in Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia. The ban on his entry into Ukraine, if it has expired, should be extended and maintained.