Bucharest is ready to host “500,000 Ukrainian refugees” and worries about the presence of the Russian army in the transnistrian enclave.
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Lilia Kolesnik resumes his breath. This Ukrainian mother has just passed the frontier of Sighetu Marmatii, in northern Romania, as several hundred of his compatriots fleeing the war. Accompanied by his two children, she left at wind his house in Bukovel, the most popular ski resort, located in the southwest of Ukraine. Thursday, February 24, less than 100 kilometers away, the Russian army bombarded Ivano-Frankivsk Airport, which hosts a military base. “I took my children and I left, explains the 42-year-old woman. I’m lucky to have friends in Romania.”
NATO member country since 2004, Romania is one of the borders between the Atlantic Alliance of the former Soviet Republic. Since the triggering of the Russian army’s attacks against Ukraine, the Romanian authorities are preparing for a significant flow of arrivals. “We are ready to welcome 500,000 refugees,” said the Minister of Defense, Vasile Dincu. We have a plan that provides centers in large cities and near borders. ”
A few hundred Ukrainians have already trampled the Romanian soil and several thousand are expected in the coming days. Although it is one of the poorest countries of the European Union (EU), Romania has become an exit door for those who flee the war.
Two thousand American soldiers, spread over six military bases, reside there, and an antimissile shield, that Moscow considers a threat to his security, is in Deveseselu, a village located in the south of the country. “As NATO members, we benefit from security guarantees that Romania has never had, Rejoice General Daniel Pardrescu, Head of the Romanian Staff. The aggressive behavior of the Russian Federation has destroys the security of this part of the world, but the probability that Romania becomes its target of offensive actions is minimal. “
” At the epicenter of tensions “
Recently, Washington has strengthened its device. On February 11, the United States installed a Stryker armor unit and dispatched a thousand extra soldiers from the Vilseck base in eastern Germany. France, which was about, for its part, to send a few hundred soldiers to take the command of a tactical group within NATO, will “accelerate” their arrival, assured, Thursday, Emmanuel Macron. What to reassure the people who, in unison of other countries located on Eastern confines in the EU, is alarmed for its own safety. Romania, which has access to the Black Sea, is “at the epicenter of tensions” and must be “reassured”, “said the Minister of the Armies, in late January, Florence Parly.
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