During the press conference organized by Alex Florența, the General Prosecutor of Romania, regarding the indictment of Călin Georgescu and 21 other individuals for crimes against the constitutional order, the official stated that Horațiu Potra is attempting to seek political asylum in Russia.
„We do not have specific information about his exact location to be able to request his extradition to Romania based on the international arrest warrant. We have clues. What I can tell you, however, is that there is definite information resulting from the investigation that at this moment Horațiu Potra… is making efforts… to the Russian authorities to obtain asylum,” stated Alex Florența.
When the chief prosecutor states that there are no concrete elements regarding Horațiu Potra's whereabouts, but he is making efforts to obtain political asylum in Russia, his expression subtly indicates that Romanian authorities have clues that the mercenary has reached Moscow or is on his way there.
Most recently, Potra came into the public eye on January 8, 2025, when he was photographed in the lobby of a hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, while talking to Anait Martirosyan, a real estate agent from Russia. According to the images, most likely taken through intelligence surveillance, Potra paid a large sum of money to the Russian woman.
Confirmation of Kremlin's Interference in Romania
In light of the new information presented by the General Prosecutor, it can be assumed that at that time, Horațiu Potra, an associate of Călin Georgescu, was arranging his transfer and stay in Russia.
It is unlikely that officials from the Kremlin will rush to offer him political asylum, as that would mean officially acknowledging that Potra is their agent and they are protecting him. However, the arrival of the former Foreign Legion member in Russia confirms once again his ties to the Kremlin, as well as the fact that former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu, Potra's associate, is connected to the power and influence system in Russia.
From excerpts of the indictment of Călin Georgescu, Horațiu Potra, and others, made public, it emerges that the investigation focused on events that occurred after the first round of the presidential elections held on November 24, 2024, an election that was subsequently annulled by the Constitutional Court of Romania through a unanimous decision.
"...the two defendants, namely Călin Georgescu and Horațiu Potra, discussed a plan according to which the second defendant, together with individuals from his relational circle, with military training or specific operational capabilities related to military training, were to carry out on December 8, 2024, in Bucharest, within the context of protest actions, violent subversive actions, aimed at diverting the peaceful nature of the protest actions into manifestations characterized by violence," as stated in the prosecutors' report released to the public.
"The strategy aimed, through emotional and behavioral contagion combined with manipulation of collective emotions, in a context of maximum social tension, at changing the constitutional order or hindering or preventing the exercise of state power," the report further states.
If following the indictment and prosecution of the two conspirators, Romanian authorities confirm their connections to Russia, as well as the fact that our country is a target of the Kremlin, and hybrid actions are intensifying, there is currently no official position regarding the institutional vulnerabilities that led to the attempted coup.
"Attempts at coups violate the norms of criminal law by affecting the social relations to which the people have adhered (giving them legitimacy) and which are fully legitimate through their adherence to policies exercised through state power, produced through elections conducted in accordance with fundamental law," as stated in the prosecutors' report.
Călin Georgescu Received Solid Assurances He Would Become President of Romania
By analyzing the sequence of events and the intense campaign carried out on TikTok, as well as on other social networks, it is evident that there was an operation, entirely different from the military one, investigated by prosecutors.
The General Prosecutor's indictment reveals that in 2019, Călin Georgescu contacted Judge Adriana Stoicescu from the Timișoara Court of Appeal, proposing that she assume the position of Minister of Justice when he becomes president.
The discussion between the two is interesting from two perspectives:
- it shows that there was an underground plan for promoting and supporting Călin Georgescu for at least 5 years.
- it suggests that the former presidential candidate received assurances that he considered important and substantial that he would become the head of state.
If Georgescu had not won the first round of the presidential elections, the information from the prosecutors' investigation would have had no value.
The context created by the elections annulled at the last minute by Romanian authorities and the confidence displayed by Călin Georgescu as early as 2019, when he distributed positions across the country, indicates that Russia's agents were already infiltrated at the highest levels within the structures of the Romanian state.
Institutional Paralysis
Călin Georgescu did not win the first round of the presidential elections solely due to an intense TikTok campaign, but mainly because of institutional paralysis on multiple levels caused by local agents within Russia's influence networks.
The research presented by the General Prosecutor represents strong evidence of Russia's systematic disinformation actions in Romania in recent years and substantial interference in the 2024 presidential elections. As it is a matter of national security, I invite the media to continue investigating the facts that the Prosecutor's Office has been able to make public and present them to the public.
Nicușor Dan, President of Romania
Even though there were individuals who observed the unfolding conspiracy, warnings from lower levels were marginalized, minimized, or blocked by those infiltrated into institutions so that at the level of political leaders, often with their complicity, the overall danger was not perceived, and the information and data could not be put together to describe the operation's scope.
"Winning the first round of the presidential elections in Romania, which took place on Sunday, November 24, 2024, by Călin Georgescu, was entirely surprising. With a candidacy presented in October and without declaring any campaign budget, he obtained nearly 23% of the votes (over 2 million votes) by campaigning almost exclusively online, especially on the TikTok platform. Little known to the general public before the presidential elections, the candidate was credited with less than 1% of the vote intentions in surveys conducted four weeks before the election and with 10.6% of the vote intentions between November 20 and 21," according to a report by the French government's cybersecurity agency.
The fact that almost 10 months after those events there are no investigations into the institutional and political failures that occurred before the elections only shows that the danger has not passed, and Romania remains vulnerable, even though we are on the cusp of a timid healing process.