According to an investigation published by leading international media outlets, Romania has emerged as a state with serious institutional vulnerabilities. The investigation shows that Romanian documents, including passports, have been used by Russian citizens to bypass international sanctions. These are not isolated errors, but recurring patterns pointing to opaque mechanisms operating within the administration.

The issuance of citizenship and passports is handled by clearly defined state structures: the National Citizenship Authority, the General Directorate of Passports, and institutions under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. These are sensitive mechanisms with direct implications for national and European security. Under these conditions, the claim that such practices went unnoticed is increasingly difficult to sustain.

The contradiction becomes evident when compared to the public narrative of the past year. Political leaders and power structures have repeatedly invoked the Russian threat to explain contested elections, disinformation campaigns, and controversial political figures such as Călin Georgescu. Russia has been portrayed as an omnipresent destabilizing actor.

Yet in this very context, the Romanian state appears to have allowed passports and citizenship to reach individuals seeking to evade sanctions imposed on Russia. How can this logical break be explained? Is Romania capable of detecting foreign interference in elections but unable to control its own administrative systems?

The hypothesis of simple administrative incompetence is insufficient. A more credible explanation points to a captured administration, where responsibility is fragmented, oversight is superficial, and real decisions take place outside any transparent framework. Accountability disappears, while the system continues to serve informal interests.

Uncomfortable but legitimate questions arise. Is Romania truly so naïve as to believe that refugee flows and citizenship procedures could not be exploited by hostile networks? Is it plausible that among legitimate Ukrainian arrivals there were no Russian infiltrators? Or are we witnessing a convenient masquerade, where external threats are invoked selectively, only when politically useful?

If this system has operated for years, the beneficiaries are clear: intermediaries, protected officials, and influence networks. The costs are borne by ordinary citizens, by Romania's credibility, and by the security of the European Union.

Without serious investigations and political accountability, Romanian citizenship risks remaining a tradable asset within a distorted system. A state that cannot control who becomes its citizen cannot credibly claim control over its own future.