Romania has detained six people on charges of trying to overthrow the state with Russia’s help, prosecutors said. A 101-year-old former army major general also claimed his home was raided as part of the investigation.
The suspects were detained on Wednesday, the same day Romania – a European Union and NATO member state – declared the Russian embassy’s military attaché and his deputy persona non grata for what it said were acts contravening diplomatic rules. Moscow has said it will respond to the move.
Police said on Thursday that the group was allegedly formed to undermine the “sovereignty and independence” of the Romanian state by “politically undermining the country’s defence capacity.” Investigations supported by Romanian intelligence services revealed that the group allegedly sought “the removal of the current constitutional order, the dissolution of political parties,” and the installation of a new government formed by its members.
“In order to achieve their destabilizing objectives, representatives of the group actively requested support from officers within the Embassy of the Russian Federation,” said Romania’s domestic intelligence agency, the SRI. It said the two expelled Russian diplomats “collected information in areas of strategic interest and took measures to support the anti-constitutional moves of the group.”
Two of the suspects traveled to Moscow in January, where they met people who were willing to support the group’s takeover of power in Romania, the public prosecutor said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the accusations as “speculations.”
“Bucharest’s obsession with searching for ‘Russian traces’ in Romania’s internal political struggles is not a new phenomenon,” the ministry said on social media platform X. “Russia has no habit of interfering in the internal affairs of others.”
Prosecutors said the group had a military-type structure, with judicial sources naming 101-year-old former Romanian Army Major-General Radu Theodoru as a suspect. Theodoru, a Holocaust denier who has repeatedly praised Romania’s fascist World War II leadership, said in a recorded interview with his daughter posted on his Facebook page that he believed the current government represented “an anti-Romanian state, a system organized to rob this country.”
“They wasted this country and now they defend themselves and find reasons to misinform the public,” he added.
Prosecutors said the group had taken steps to negotiate with external forces regarding the potential withdrawal of Romania, which shares a border with Ukraine, from the NATO military alliance. They said the group aimed to install a new government and dissolve the current constitutional order, introducing a new flag, national anthem, and changing the country’s name.
Political tensions have been running high in Romania since its top court voided the presidential election in December amid accusations of Russian interference – denied by Moscow – in favor of far-right frontrunner Calin Georgescu. Georgescu is himself under investigation on six charges, all of which he denies.
The investigation announced on Thursday is unrelated to Georgescu, prosecution sources said. Judicial sources quoted by TV station Antena3 said one of the expelled Russian officials was loosely tied to a suspect in the Georgescu investigation.
