Romanian presidential front-runner George Simion said he would not be in favor of sending more military gear to Ukraine but will follow any decisions made by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Simion told POLITICO that he would not vote personally to send “military aid to Ukraine because I will consult in defense matters with the American side,” as Kyiv resists Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion.
The hard-right leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians is on track to win the Romanian presidency, after snagging 40 percent of the vote in last Sunday’s first round, which would tilt the country sharply to the right and away from the EU mainstream.
While Simion condemns Russia’s aggression, he is highly critical of Ukraine.
“We have our own problems with Ukrainians because they are behaving like Russians in many ways,” Simion said, claiming that Ukraine is not respecting the rights of the country’s Romanian minority to access schools or churches.
“So, the first thing I must do is solve these problems with the Ukrainian side because we as Romanians contributed a lot in the war effort,” he said.
The position of Romania’s minority in Ukraine has been a long-standing bone of contention between the countries. After pressure from international organizations, Ukraine implemented a law to protect minority rights at the end of 2023, with the European Commission issuing a favorable report on it in 2024.
Simion was banned in 2024 from entering Ukraine for three years for what Kyiv called “systematic anti-Ukrainian activities.”
Simion added that if he wins the top job in the second round on May 18 and makes it to the European Council table in Brussels, he would push other EU leaders to be guided by Trump’s White House on defense policy.
“I will take the same stances and will support whatever the Trump administration will do because they are the leaders of NATO and, from the security and defense point of view, the Americans didn’t disappoint us,” Simion said, adding he opposes a European army “led by the French.”
Simion — who touted himself as being “almost perfectly aligned ideologically with the MAGA movement” before the election’s first round — has boosted his standing with Republicans in Trump’s orbit, even attending the U.S. president’s inauguration in Washington in January.
Earlier this week, after winning the election’s first round, he met the chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual Republican bash that brings together MAGA and other American right-wing figures.
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