Romania and Europe will continue to support Ukraine in the war with Russia, which is exerting increasing pressure, trying to create tension in relations inside the European societies, Romanian President Nicusor Dan said in an interview to Bloomberg published on Friday.
Asked what Europe can do to help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy amid the deterioration of his relationship with his American counterpart Donald Trump, Dan said that " we will continue to do what we have already done. The signal we have to pass to the world is that we are committed to continue to support Ukraine until the end of this war and after that and also aid for the reconstruction.", agerpres reports.
Criticised again harshly by U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will plead on Friday in Brussels at the EU summit for a reaffirmation of the support of his European allies.
"We now have a conversation with President Zelenskiy, as usual. He will tell us what are the problems that he is facing: the winter, the energetical problems, the financing, and we will continue to support him, " said the Romanian president in an interview as part of a visit to Brussels for the EU summit.
Dan also said that "Ukraine is a question of security, not only a question of international law;but it's also a question of own security for Europe."
Asked if the drones involved in the recent Black Sea attacks were Russian, the president replied that "we cannot technically say now that they are Russian."
" What we can say is that we had hundreds of air drones on the Danube border with Ukraine that passed to the Romanian territory. And for the good part of them we can say they are Russian because we have pieces of them that have inside Russian components that have been deviated during the war to the Romanian territory " he added.
According to Dan, Russia is attacking a Navy corridor used by Ukraine to transport grain to the Bosphorus and other parts of the world.
Asked if Romania would trigger Article 4 of the NATO Treaty if it turns out that the drones were Russian, Dan said that " there is an increasing pressure from the Russian side."
"So, it's not only that events. The whole events happening in Europe - in Estonia, the Baltic countries, in Poland. Russia tries to tension the relations inside the European societies in order to decrease the support of the population for supporting Ukraine. Our answers have to be: we will continue to support Ukraine," he explained.
Asked what resources Romania requires from NATO to protect itself against such attacks, said that " we are in the same situation we were last year when we had hundreds of drones near the Danube border, now we have on the shore border."
"Last year we asked for our allies that before all the equipment come in Romania, please help us with some capabilities in order to counter that attacks. We did for some important countries in the alliance, so we'll do the same inside NATO now. And I am optimistic that we will have some support until we have the capabilities that we have already ordered."
About Romania's relations with the US, the president said that they are "very good."
"We have a longer strategic partnership that had mutual benefits for both countries, because we have the biggest base on the Black Sea and having that base the United States are interested to project forth towards the other parts of the world, like the Middle East, the eastern Mediterranean So, we have a very good strategic relationship with the United States." said Dan.
