Călin Georgescu's surprise victory in the first round of Romania's presidential elections on November 24 has plunged the country in a political crisis. In an unprecedented move, the Constitutional Court of Romania annulled the results of the first election round after allegations of Russian interference. Anete Bērzkalne, disinformation researcher at Latvijas Radio, analyses Russia's role in bringing about Georgescu's victory and explains how it fits in Russia's larger playbook of sowing chaos and division.
Călin Georgescu talks to media several days after the Constitutional Court ordered a re-run of Romania's presidential elections. Photo: Robert Ghement / ANP / EPA
The rise of Călin Georgescu in Romania’s presidential race on 24 November, where he secured nearly 23% of the vote, caught many by surprise. Prior to the election, polls had projected him to garner only around 5%, positioning him as an underdog.
Notably, on 14 June 2016, Sputnik, the Kremlin’s international propaganda mouthpiece, confidently wrote: 'Dr. Călin Georgescu will be the future Prime Minister of Romania.' A bold claim at the time, but one that now seems eerily prescient given Georgescu’s near success in the recent race for Romania’s presidency. Was this a stroke of clairvoyant foresight or the unveiling of a coordinated plan? The evidence increasingly points to the latter.
Russia, after all, has demonstrated remarkable patience in its disinformation campaigns. Take, for example, Operation 'Infektion' – a Soviet KGB-led effort to spread the false claim that HIV/AIDS was created in a U.S. laboratory as a biological weapon. The seeds of this operation were sown in 1983, but it was not until 1986 that the narrative gained global traction, appearing in media across 80 countries. Decades later, its impact lingers, with surveys revealing that millions of Americans still believe it to be true. History has therefore shown that the long game can yield significant geopolitical dividends.
So, was Georgescu’s rise truly extraordinary, or does it mark the culmination of years of subtle, strategic influence, a practice the Kremlin has long mastered? As influence operations are, at their core, a competition for public perception, sports terminology may offer a clearer framework here to unpack the evidence.
1 - Marathon
A recent investigation by Intelligence Online and the Romanian news site Snoop uncovered that AdNow, a Kremlin-linked marketing agency, has been flooding Romania’s information space with disinformation and conspiracy theories for years. AdNow came into the spotlight in 2021, when a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty investigation revealed that the company was engaged in a large-scale disinformation campaign targeting Western coronavirus vaccines in France. At the time, AdNow had registered offices in London and Moscow. At its helm was Yulia Serebryanskaya, a Moscow businesswoman with ties to Russian political campaigns, including those of Dmitry Medvedev (2007) and Vladimir Putin (2012). Notably, AdNow’s London branch shared an address with a company, BTC-e Exchange, that worked with the Russian cyber-espionage group referred to as 'Fancy Bear' or APT28. This group is linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU) and was found to have interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.
As of October 2021, AdNow is owned by the Bulgarian company Renodo Media LTD, which is controlled by Giorgi Valerievich Abuladze, a Georgian citizen serving as a trustee for over fifty companies worldwide. While the company denies any ties to Russia, an employee has claimed that their work originates exclusively from Russia.
Nevertheless, between 2016 and 2024, AdNow channelled at least two million euros into Romanian outlets like RTV and Realitatea Plus, known for their pro-Russian bias, as well as to conspiracy influencers and publications with extreme right-wing content. The agency also created fake websites mimicking trusted Romanian news outlets like RFI and Digi24, replicating tactics from Russia’s Doppelgänger operation. These efforts spread conspiracy theories, anti-vaccine rhetoric, and anti-Western, pro-Russian messaging, later also laced with pro-Georgescu content. Georgescu’s campaign leveraged this distrust in Western institutions, amplifying anti-NATO rhetoric and conspiratorial narratives to appeal to fringe and far-right voters. By positioning himself as a populist alternative to the political establishment, he capitalized on the fertile ground AdNow had cultivated through years of disinformation and erosion of trust in traditional institutions. In essence, it seems Russia spent years bankrolling conspiracy theories in Romania, paving the way for a 'saviour' to emerge and capitalize on it.
2 - Sprint
Initially, Georgescu’s TikTok campaign drew attention for its seemingly spontaneous success. However, declassified documents from the Supreme National Defence Council revealed that this success was anything but organic – it was part of a coordinated effort financed by significant funds.
The investigation identified Romanian citizen Bogdan Peșchir, operating the TikTok account 'bogpr', as the financier behind the campaign. TikTok confirmed that, between October 24 and November 24, Peșchir paid USD 381,000 (approximately EUR 360,000) to users who shared videos that promoted Georgescu’s campaign. This operation mobilized around 25,000 accounts, which became particularly active in the two weeks leading up to the first round of elections.
Users were recruited through FameUp, a platform that connects advertisers with social media influencers, enabling the targeted selection of Romanian influencers. Additionally, influencers were approached via the South Africa-registered FA Agency, which offered generous compensation, namely around EUR 1,000 per shared video, via email.
Peșchir’s ties to South Africa add another layer of intrigue. Before 2021, he worked as a programmer for cryptocurrency companies partially owned by Gabriel Prodanescu, a South African citizen of Romanian descent. Although Peșchir later established his own company, investigators noted that its revenues do not align with the vast sums funnelled into Georgescu’s campaign, raising questions about the true origins of these funds. Peșchir, however, has denied having any ties with Russia and claimed that his actions were voluntary, citing inspiration from Elon Musk’s support for Donald Trump.
Romanian protest against Călin Georgescu in Bucharest: 'Georgescu lied to us and he allied with Putin'. Photo: Robert Ghement / ANP / EPA
Nevertheless, these revelations underscore how seemingly organic social media popularity can be deceptive, inflated by dubious cash injections through obfuscated channels. By exploiting platform algorithms, this strategy amplified pro-Georgescu content, ensuring it reached a wider audience and garnered increasing attention. While this short-term 'operation' currently shows no direct links to Russian actors, it highlights how a final, intense push can capitalize on the long-term groundwork laid by AdNow.
3 - Finish line
Another recent investigation uncovered Georgescu’s ties to Horațiu Potra, a private military contractor and former mercenary recently detained on weapons charges and incitement to illegal gatherings. While Georgescu initially denied knowing or meeting Potra, reports revealed that Georgescu’s team had, in fact, met with him – allegedly to seek protection for Georgescu. Just 12 hours after this meeting, Potra and 20 others were detained by Romanian police while on their way to Bucharest. Authorities claim Potra was planning acts of intimidation and protests, transporting weapons, including firearms, and approximately USD 18,000 in cash, following the Constitutional Court’s annulment of the first round of elections, which Georgescu had won. The operation was reportedly uncovered after a tip-off to the police by a relative of one of the participants, warning of preparations for violent protests.
Potra’s defence lawyers have claimed that the case was not related to Georgescu; however the parallels to Moldova’s presidential election are hard to ignore. In October 2024, Moldovan authorities uncovered a programme, believed to be linked to fugitive Moldovan pro-Kremlin businessman Ilan Shor, in which citizens were flown to Russia for training to stage riots and civil unrest. Police revealed that some individuals were also trained in camps linked to private military companies operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Serbia.
These incidents underscore a broader strategy of orchestrating protests designed to simulate genuine public outrage, creating an illusion of widespread support for pro-Russian candidates. While both the Moldovan and Romanian 'protest' schemes were stopped in time, they appear to be designed for fuelling Kremlin-backed narratives that depict pro-Western governments as undemocratic. In Romania’s case, the annulment of the first round of elections has been framed by Russia as an anti-democratic act, with the planned but unexecuted protests that would have served as a fitting backdrop to this narrative, presenting them as a public outcry against institutional overreach.
The dual strategy of influence campaigns
An effective influence campaign operates as a two-fold strategy, positioning the target country in a disadvantageous situation regardless of the outcome. A successful campaign can tap into deeply rooted concerns and suspicions within a target society, subtly embedding these amplified narratives into people’s beliefs until they seem to arise organically, when in fact they are externally engineered to advance foreign, often geopolitical, interests. If exposed and acted upon, as in Romania’s case, the propagators and other ideologically-aligned parties can accuse the country’s government of democratic backsliding. Georgescu himself accused the authorities of organizing a 'practically formalized coup d’état'.
Donald Trump Jr. called the annulment of Romania's first round election results a 'Soros/Marxist attempt at rigging the outcome'. Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski / ANP / AFP
It was not, however, only directly interested parties who seized upon these accusations. On December 7, Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of Donald Trump, shared a post on X stating: 'The Constitutional Court just canceled the first round of their presidential election. Another Soros/Marxist attempt at rigging the outcome & denying the will of the people.' This statement was swiftly embraced by Kremlin-controlled media. To be clear, this is not to suggest that Donald Trump Jr. intentionally aligned his remarks with Russia’s interests. The 'stolen election' narrative, which has gained significant traction in U.S. political discourse, is a separate matter of concern. Nevertheless, the Romanian case underscores how effectively influence operations can shape perceptions, making the annulment of the elections, despite clear evidence of interference, appear as the 'undemocratic' and 'unjust' act, rather than the interference itself.
When faith in democratic systems and alliances is undermined, the resulting uncertainty and disorientation render a nation vulnerable. As a former KGB operative noted in The New York Times' series 'Operation InfeKtion', the ultimate goal of ideological subversion is to alter perceptions to such an extent that, despite an abundance of information, individuals are unable to draw reasonable conclusions to safeguard themselves, their families, and their communities.
This fosters an environment where people no longer know whom or what to trust, paving way for any willing actor, including external, to exploit the chaos. Moreover, unity, whether in domestic cohesion or through international alliances, is a source of strength. A key tactic of influence campaigns is to isolate the target country from its allies, fostering mistrust and portraying partnerships as adversarial rather than beneficial. This was clearly evident in Georgescu’s rhetoric, denigrating Romania’s long standing alliance with NATO. The strategy is therefore clear: divide nations and alliances to weaken collective strength, leaving individual countries more susceptible to external manipulation.
