Many of today’s supporters of Călin Georgescu, if they were to stop what they are doing for 5 minutes and ask themselves a simple question – when did they first learn about the existence of this man? – and then try to answer, they would be surprised to discover that many of them, at the beginning of November 2024, three weeks before the first round of the presidential elections, had never heard of Călin Georgescu.
Furthermore, according to reports from Google, on November 25th, there were millions of Romanians searching for Georgescu on the Internet because they didn’t know who he was.
Those who did not have TikTok accounts and were not exposed to the intense campaign carried out by Russian agents on the social network controlled by China had no idea who Călin Georgescu was.
It's very difficult to stop for 5 minutes, ask yourself simple and clear questions, give yourself honest answers, and, in the end, admit that you were a victim in a confrontation about which no one warned you and no one prepared you.
The writer of these lines was also, in turn, a victim like millions of other Romanian citizens. Personally, I consider myself more guilty and responsible than those attacked on TikTok because I am a qualified journalist, trained to be suspicious and ask questions.
At least three times during the electoral campaign, participating in political shows, I crossed paths with candidate Călin Georgescu and people from his team. I knew who he was, even who was behind him, I had learned years ago that he was supported by circles of individuals linked to representatives of Russia, but it never crossed my mind for a moment that around him was developing the most powerful and sophisticated political weapon of modern times, aimed at undermining democracy and the Romanian state.
The Precedent of the Alchemists from 2020
The weapon consisted of the rapid manipulation of social network algorithms, bombarding millions of voters with hundreds of millions of messages, selected according to demographic criteria, with the aim of quickly forming a tide of opinion and major political support, in just three weeks, for the Russian candidate.
"...it is important to underline that the observed phenomena were not limited to TikTok, other modes of operation being identified on the Meta group platforms (Facebook and Instagram). These information operations were also accompanied by a large number of cyber attacks targeting information systems related to the electoral process, thus demonstrating the deployment of a large-scale apparatus aimed at destabilizing a major democratic event. After Georgia and Moldova, Romania is the third European country affected, at the end of 2024, by large-scale manipulations of the electoral process," states a report by the French government's digital security agency.
Romania, according to several reports, was the first country in the European Union and NATO to be targeted by such an attack, and in my opinion, after documenting and following this issue for over 10 months, Russian agents connected with influence networks in Romania were convinced they would succeed.
There is a precedent, the transformation of AUR from a marginal political formation, without leadership structure and local organizations, emerged out of nowhere, into a parliamentary party in the December 2020 elections.
The digital alchemists involved in creating AUR were confident they could turn Călin Georgescu into the president of Romania. And they would have done it if, at the eleventh hour, there hadn't been a strong institutional reaction and an acknowledgment that the decision to cancel the elections was made due to foreign interference and violations of electoral laws by Călin Georgescu and his associates.
Visits to the Russian Embassy
"On the one hand, we are talking about the careful cultivation, often below the detection threshold, of networks of media business and internal political sources capable of influencing governmental decisions in one form or another," stated Alex Florența, the Prosecutor General of Romania, who held a press conference following the indictment of Călin Georgescu and Horațiu Potra for offenses against the constitutional order and dissemination of false information, in a continuous form, meaning organizing a coup d'état.
"We remember the relationships and visits made to the Russian embassy and developed in the last two years by several Romanian parliamentarians. But an important element found in the Romanian space at this moment is also the instrumentalization of Romanian extremist groups.
We also remember the case of Marian Moțoc, a character indicted by the Prosecutor's Office this year and who had entered into direct coordination with the Russian Federation Embassy at that time, specifically with the Russian military attaché," stated the Prosecutor General of Romania.
The indictment and press conference yesterday represent the first public, legal, and explanatory action carried out by the authorities in our country after the presidential elections in May and the installation of a new president and government.
Legally speaking, it doesn't mean much, the case will go to court, time will pass, and the outcome is unknown, but at this moment there is an official position of the authorities regarding what happened in November, as well as Russia's hybrid attacks.
The Secondary Effect of the Georgescu Operation
Romania has been severely hit by Russia, and the Kremlin's fury was provoked by the support that Bucharest provided to Chisinau.
After the invasion of Ukraine and the major military failure recorded by Russia, Vladimir Putin's strategy was to take political control of Moldova to exert pressure on the enemy from the west to the east to control and restrict the supply lines of arms and goods coming from the West to Ukraine.
The failure so far of this operation to take political control of Moldova by Russia, in which hundreds of millions of euros have been and continue to be invested, is also caused by Romania's involvement, and this generated the Kremlin's decision to launch a devastating attack on Bucharest, which horrified European chancelleries.
The decision to cancel the elections also had a secondary effect, revealing the way in which political operatives and representatives of intelligence services manipulate social networks, with or without the consent of those who administer them.
The crisis was so great that many masks fell, exposing the opaque manner in which political candidates are imposed and promoted outside democratic rules, some of them being prepared and launched by hostile power circles from outside the respective state.
The Georgescu case represents, in my opinion, a turning point in terms of the threat to democracies and liberal societies by authoritarian regimes. If society does not realize at the societal level that the freedom and well-being of millions of people can be shattered in a matter of weeks through a digital, illegal, and covert operation launched from thousands of kilometers away, everything will be lost.