Romania has also announced plans to train Ukrainian marines. The two-year program is expected to take place at Air Base 71, also known as Campia Turzii. This base is located in central Romania
Never sworn enemies, but not the best of neighbors either. Bucharest and Kiev today probably have the best relations in years, if not decades. The reason? Full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Territorial and language issues aside, Romania is now one of Ukraine’s strongest allies, as the two states signed a 10-year security deal in July. Not only does Bucharest provide it with military aid – although much of this aid is done covertly, for security reasons – but it also trains Ukrainian fighter pilots and will soon train the Marines. With Ukrainian trade routes cut off, Romania has also become a key conduit for global markets for Ukrainian grain and other goods.
Partly because of this support and the state’s proximity to the conflict, Romania, which shares a border of more than 650 kilometers with Ukraine, has according to media reports recorded more instances of Russian military drones flying over its territory than any other country. Romania, which is spending more than ever on defense, has also become more integrated into NATO — strategically — amid a shift eastward due to what the Western military alliance sees as the biggest threat. for European security: Russia. “I think it’s very clear that Romania’s strategic importance has increased a lot since the start of the war,” said Oana Popescu-Zamfir, director of the GlobalFocus Center in Bucharest. “For a long time we have complained that less attention has been paid to the Black Sea compared to the north-eastern wing [of NATO]. We still feel that the attention is not right and there is no clear strategy, a clear strategy of the allies for the Black Sea, in the context of Russia’s aggressiveness. But, nevertheless, a lot of progress has been made,” Popescu-Zamfir told Radio Free Europe.
PATRIOT SYSTEMS
A spokesperson for the Romanian Ministry of Defense confirmed to REL on October 3 that Ukraine has received an air defense system, Patriot, from Bucharest. Romania signed a contract in 2017 with the American company, Raytheon, and accepted the first shipment with Patriot in 2020. Currently, the country has only one such system operational. Zelensky, who personally thanked Romania for the system, has long sought more Patriot systems, arguing they would help his forces fight the nearly 3,000 bombs he said Russia fires at the country. his for every month. So far, Ukraine reportedly has five Patriot systems: two from the United States and three from Germany. Unlike the Patriot shipments, most of the military equipment that Romania has given to Ukraine is classified information. However, according to media reports and analysts, APRA-40 rocket launchers, TAB-71 armored vehicles and artillery ammunition are also included in this military aid.
Also, Bucharest has started the training of Ukrainian pilots, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense confirmed on September 12. Ukraine has long sought F-16 fighter jets from allies to bolster its air fleet, which consists of Soviet-era MiGs. Ukrainian pilots are being trained at the European F-16 Pilot Training Center (EFTC), which opened in November 2023 at the Romanian military airbase near the southeastern city of Fetest. This center also serves as a regional F-16 training center for NATO allies and partners.
Romania has also announced plans to train Ukrainian marines. The two-year program is expected to take place at Air Base 71, also known as Campia Turzii. This base is located in central Romania. The idea has been presented in the Contact Group for the Defense of Ukraine – also known as the Ramstein Group – which includes 57 countries (all 32 NATO allies and 25 other countries). Backed by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, the plan was unanimously approved by the Romanian Parliament on October 1. Economically, Romania has also been essential to Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters. Ukraine began using the Romanian port of Constanta on the Black Sea after the Russian invasion of Ukraine stopped Ukrainian shipments from its Black Sea ports. In 2023, Ukraine exported 14 million tons through Constanta, or about 40 percent of all grain exports that year, a higher figure than in 2022, when it exported 8.6 million tons.
However, the amount of exports fell in the second half of that year as Russia repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s river ports on the Danube from Romania. Ukraine is also using another route for transporting grain, along the Black Sea. This road overshadows the importance of Constanta for Kiev, but it also highlights the growth of cooperation between the two states. “The relatively good cooperation between Romania and Ukraine is expanding the export routes through the Black Sea and the Danube has fostered mutual trust. Romania is Ukraine’s neighbor by far handling the largest volume of agricultural exports,” said Simon Schlegel, Ukraine analyst at the International Crisis Group. “While adapting these key export routes to the additional burden during the winter is not a bumpy process, Kiev and Bucharest have a common interest in strengthening the port infrastructure in Romania,” Schlegel told REL.
STRENGTHENING OF ROMANIA-NATO RELATIONS
Meanwhile, Romania’s relations with NATO have also strengthened the relations. Earlier this year, Bucharest announced that it would speed up work on the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in the Black Sea. The project, which was first made public in 2019, aims to transform the base into a major NATO hub that would accommodate fighter jets and up to 10,000 NATO troops. “It will become the largest NATO base outside Turkish territory. And the reason why it is important… is because Turkey is playing a much more complicated game and sometimes it is not easy for NATO allies to depend on Turkey and definitely not for Romania, which feels that the Black Sea remains a closed sea because of Turkey and the way they use the Montrose Convention to make sure they share influence with Russia in the Black Sea, and they don’t allow any other outside influence,” Popescu-Zamfir said. referring to the document governing maritime traffic through the Turkish straits. Despite being a member of NATO, Turkey has been accused of not taking stronger action against Russian naval auxiliary vessels in its waters, and the Turkish government does not impose sanctions on Moscow’s maritime exports.
Moscow does not like the plan for works at this airbase at all. The larger the NATO base and “the closer to Russia’s borders, the more likely it is to be among the first targets for retaliatory attacks,” Russian senator Andrei Klimov said in March. “Romania will not get any benefit from this and there will be more threats. This is a fact”. Romania is used to such threats. In 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the positioning of US missiles in neighboring countries such as Romania could lead to retaliatory measures from Russia. His comments came after Romania installed a US air defense system at the Deveselu military base, also known as Black Sea.
But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has only increased fear, increased defense spending and more integration with NATO and its members. Romania, which joined the alliance in 2004, has allocated a record 19 billion euros to defense spending in 2024, exceeding the 2 percent target of Gross Domestic Product set by NATO. Romania now has the second-largest army on NATO’s eastern flank (75,000 troops, while Poland has more, totaling 122,500), but most of its military equipment is Soviet-era, although the country has begun to change them. In one of the largest modernization deals to date, Romania has purchased 32 F-35 jets from the US, the Pentagon announced in September. This agreement is worth 7.2 billion dollars. In May 2023, Romania decommissioned its MiG jets and now its fleet is mostly F-16s. Romania’s strategic importance to NATO’s eastern flank was highlighted when the military alliance in March 2022 agreed to deploy battalions to four other eastern NATO states: Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia. They joined four battalions created by NATO in 2016 and deployed (including personnel from several NATO states) to: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland – two years after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and launched to support separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The two countries have often had strained relations, and public opinion in Romania regarding Ukraine and Russia’s war can be mixed, partly because of history, Popescu-Zamfir said. Romania lost northern parts of Bukovina and parts of Bessarabia – now part of Ukraine – in 1940, thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, an agreement between the Nazis and the Soviet powers not to attack each other and to divide Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. . This part of history still has an impact today. When Zelensky gave a speech in 2019 describing the incorporation of northern Bukovina into Romania in 1919 after World War I, Romania’s Foreign Ministry issued an official note of protest. Both countries also have disagreements regarding the rights of minorities. It is estimated that 151,000 Romanians live in Ukraine, mainly in the border regions of Chernivtsi and Transcarpathia. This does not include the 259,000 people living in Chernivtsi and the Odesa region whom Kiev considers Moldovan, but Bucharest sees as Romanian, arguing that this was an artificial division.
According to polls, most Romanians support the state’s involvement in Western institutions, and Popescu-Zamfir added that most of the state’s political elite are radical when it comes to Ukraine. “I think we now have a consensus about what essentially are our interests inescapably linked to those of Ukraine,” Popescu-Zamfir said. “We are on the same side because Russia is on the other side. This makes things more black and white and that’s how we have to stay.” (REL)
