Vladimir Putin claims Romania and Hungary’s lands were taken and given to Ukraine” / This rhetoric frequently used by Diana Șoșoacă, Claudiu Târziu, and George Simion

In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin reiterated one of Moscow’s favorite assertions that Ukraine is an artificially created state, formed by amalgamating territories that rightfully belong to Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. This type of rhetoric, aimed at sowing discord among Ukraine’s Eastern European allies, is a favored theme of Romanian right-wing extremists Diana Șoșoacă, George Simion, and Claudiu Târziu (AUR).

For decades, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic developed as part of the USSR. (…) After World War II, Ukraine received, in addition to the lands that had belonged to Poland before the war, both lands that had previously belonged to Hungary, as well as those of Romania – Thus, parts of their lands were taken from Romania and Hungary and given to Soviet Ukraine, and these remain part of Ukraine today.”

„So, in this sense, we have every reason to claim that Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped according to Stalin’s will,” Putin argued, as quoted by the British newspaper The Independent.

A rhetoric that we often encounter among far-right politicians in Romania.

Senator Diana Iovanovici Şoşoacă has proposed a bill last year seeking for Romania to annex territories currently located in Ukraine but which were part of interwar Romania.

Although he stated that he does not support Diana Şoşoacă’s initiative, George Simion, the leader of the extremist AUR party, has repeatedly declared that „Bessarabia is Romania.”

On the extremist party’s website, a statement published in 2021 claims that AUR „will act to correct the consequences of the territorial and human theft that occurred on June 28, 1940, will economically and culturally support Romanians who remained outside the country’s borders, so they can preserve their national identity, and will undertake the necessary political and diplomatic steps for the unification of the two Romanian states.”

AUR Senator Claudiu Târziu stated on January 24, in Iași, that „we will not truly be sovereign until we re-integrate the Romanian state within its natural borders,” listing Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, Southern Bessarabia, Hertsa region, and Transcarpathia, territories currently located in the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.

„We will not truly be sovereign until we re-integrate the Romanian state within its natural borders. Bessarabia cannot be forgotten, it must come home. Northern Bukovina cannot be forgotten, Southern Bessarabia cannot be forgotten, the Hertsa region, Transcarpathia, everything that was and is of the Romanian nation must return within the borders of the same state. This is the ideal we were born with and which we must not forget, ignore, or remain silent about,” Claudiu Târziu stated, as quoted by news.ro.