Tension is particularly high in Romania over the Russian attack on Ukraine.

The country shares a long border with Ukraine in the northeast.

The Romanian government announced on Wednesday that it was prepared to take in 500,000 refugees.

In the south, at the mouth of the Danube in the Black Sea, there is another short but particularly exposed section of the border.

There, a narrow strip of land belonging to Ukraine separates the Republic of Moldova and Transnistria, which had broken away from Moldova, from the Black Sea.

Reinhard Veser

Editor in Politics.

  • Follow I follow

Russian soldiers have been in Transnistria since fighting in the early 1990s.

At the 1999 OSCE summit in Istanbul, Russia committed to withdrawing this force by 2002, but has not done so.

In the scenarios for the event of an attack on Ukraine, it was always considered likely that the Russian armed forces would then try to create direct access to Transnistria.

That would also endanger Moldova, which does not have any significant armed forces of its own.

Romania and Moldova are closely connected.

Reports from the Ukraine were received with nervousness in Romania that Russian troops wanted to occupy Snake Island in the Black Sea.

The small island, inhabited by only a few people, was the subject of an amicably settled territorial dispute between Romania and Ukraine in the early 2000s over the exact course of the maritime border.

This is in close proximity to Snake Island, so any fighting in this area would risk spilling over into Romanian waters.

There was excitement in Romania early in the morning when a Ukrainian military aircraft entered Romanian airspace.

It was directed to the Bacau military base.

After that, there were – incorrect – reports about other aircraft.

In Bucharest, Russian disinformation was suspected to be behind these rumours.

Observers in Romania also fear that Russia could use fake news to stoke tensions around Ukraine's large Romanian minority.

There have been repeated disagreements between Romania and Ukraine over the past few years.

In his speech recognizing the "people's republics" in eastern Ukraine on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out that after the Second World War Stalin gave Ukraine territories