Russia Demands Romania To Admit Sending Weapons to Ukraine

Russia demands Romania “to stop hiding behind humanitarian assistance” and admit that it sends weapons to Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the demand in a press conference.

According to Maria Zakharova, the Russian ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson, Romania must publicly acknowledge that it sends weapons to Ukraine. In a post on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website in Moscow, Maria Zaharova invited Bucharest “to tell the people and the whole world how things are in reality”.

Supplying Ukrainian nationalists with weapons to fight their own people only prolongs the conflict (in case Bucharest doesn’t know this) and leads to a greater number of victims. (…)Those who contribute to this share with the nationalist regime in Kyiv the responsibility for all the new crimes, the blood and the suffering of the people.

Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman

The Russian official places a big question mark on a subject that has also concerned the Romanian people since the war between Ukraine and Russia began.

If Romanian officials think that everything is irrelevant, this is their opinion. But it would be good to make public some ‘disclosures’ about these loads. What are they actually sending to the Kyiv regime?

Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman

The accusations were made in a context where, according to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Romanian press agency not named by the Russian official, cited the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksii Reznikov, thanking his Romanian counterpart, Vasile Dincu, for the fifth supply of weapons and ammunition sent to Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Anyway, there is no such news in the Romanian press, articles, or information regarding the alleged phone call between the two ministers of defence.

What is Romania sending to Ukraine, according to official sources?

It should be mentioned that since the beginning of the war, Romania was the country that actively helped both the Ukrainian state and its citizens through numerous humanitarian activities. Also, the Romanian state made public that it sent Kyiv ammunition and ballistic protection equipment, but not weaponry.

However, in August, information that Bulgaria purchased rusted missiles from Belarus through a Bulgarian enterprise and delivered them to Ukraine via a Romanian state-owned company was leaked to the press.

Romania and Bulgaria are among the states that have not admitted that they send weapons to Ukraine. On the other hand, other former communist countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia, but also Turkey, Germany and the USA, have made it public that they help the Ukrainian forces with weapons and ammunition.

A few months after the start of the war, the President of Romania, Klaus Johannis, held a press conference related to the subject of Romania’s solidarity with Ukraine, in which Romania’s president did not say clearly whether Romania sent heavy weapons to Ukraine, claiming that in war it is not wise to give essential information to the opponent.

There were accusations from Moscow that Romania sent heavy weapons to Kyiv, but none of them were replied to by Romanian officials. Either way, Romania is not likely to admit it sent weapons to Kyiv, but a reaction to these new accusations is expected from Bucharest. According to the diplomatic rules, an answer could be offered by the Romanian spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Photo source: MFA Russia Twitter