Given how Musk, USA and Russia have now united their effort in helping an insane man become president in my country, I figured it is very relevant to show and remind everyone just how crazy Calin Georgescu is, through his very own words. About Russia...

"Romania's only hope is the Russian wisdom. [...] There, in Russia, is the light, the West means absolutely nothing [...] Vladimir Putin is a great leader and a great patriot, in their sense of the word. He is very dedicated to his country and his people."

When you see Musk's attempts to promote a pro-Russian lunatic as president of Romania, don't go thinking he's attacking us just cause that's what happened to randomly catch his attention.

While this might come as a surprise, Romania plays a crucial role in Europe right now. 🧵 With offshore gas reserves of around 100 billion cubic meters which we are just about to start extracting by 2027, Romania is already the largest gas producer in a very energy hungry Europe, and plays quite the role in easing European dependency on Russia and the US.

While lots of mean voices, mine included, accused Musk of suspiciously overlooking China in his fight against "globalist neo-communist oppression", that is not entirely correct.

Elon Musk did tweet quite a great deal of things about a China, and here's a thread to prove it! 🧵 While Musk often refers to democratically elected Western leaders he doesn't like as "illegitimate", "tyrants" or "communists", when referring to Xi Jinping, an actual illegitimate communist tyrant, he always makes sure to follow the protocolary "President Xi".

Solidly present in Twitter's "Top 30 Most Community Noted" with over 100 entries, Visegrad24 seems to be Musk's new favorite source of news for Europe.

For those not yet aware of what a Visegrad is and does, I've prepared a short thread to help you get a taste of it.🧵 What I do appreciate most about Visegrad is the holistic approach they take to lying, very much not restricting themselves to doing it solely for political purposes.

While I have to admit a mosquito air-defense system does sound pretty amazing, it is unfortunately not real

I figured I'd do a thread to put into some perspective Transnistria's seemingly absurd recent refusal to jointly purchase gas with Moldova and why at this point, even if offered free gas from a non-Russian source, they are very likely to flatly refuse it. 🧵 Freezing or starving, do not assume the population of Transnistria will put the blame for it on Russia. The few that understand Russia has means of bypassing Ukraine to supply them with gas, will blame the pro-EU Sandu, while the many that don't, will blame Ukraine for it.

Having decided to do an occasional historical thread every now and then, meet the very smoothly named "Nikolai Robert Maximilian Freiherra von Ungern-Sternberg", quite possibly the craziest man you have never heard of and the holder of the "Last Khan of Mongolia" title.🧵 Born in Austro-Hungary in 1886 from a German mother of noble heritage and a father legally declared insane, the young Roman would soon move to the Russian Empire alongside his family, mostly thanks to the family's rather unsubstantiated realization that might be Romanovs.

With the impending Russian made humanitarian crisis in Transnistria bound to increasingly make its way into the news, I figured I'd do a short thread on the history of the place to offer a bit of a context, inevitably also touching on the history of Moldova and Romania.🧵 In 1918, in the aftermath of Russian Empire's chaotic disintegration, Moldova succeeds in putting an end to over a century of brutal Russian occupation and, faced with the prospect of being re-absorbed by the new Russian state, votes for unification with the Kingdom of Romania.

With Russia playing geopolitical poker with the lives of the 500k people living in Transnistria that it very much likes to call "its own", a thought came again to mind, one of the first to naively strike me back on that infamous morning of February 24th, 2022.🧵 Whenever I heard those Russian speeches about their "historical claims to Ukraine" or the whole "we are the same people" narrative backed by passionate "brotherly" claims, as a Romanian, I couldn't help but compare that to our views and our actions in relation to Moldova.

With Russia cutting off the gas supply in an attempt to destabilize Moldova ahead of its 2025 parliamentary elections (a last ditch effort after the pro-EU Maia Sandu won a second presidential term), Transnistria is quickly spiraling into a full blown humanitarian crisis.🧵 The pro-Russian Transnistrian "authorities" have completely cut off the hot water and heating supply to urban areas, with residential buildings only receiving "enough gas to cook".

Even so, the 13 million m3 of gas left are estimated to completely run out in 14 days, at best.

By popular demand, as promised, I compiled a short thread of the funniest and most absurd of Russia's recent arsons (with a bit of a bonus something at the end). Do enjoy! 🧵 In Bryansk, an zealous Z patriot decided to do her bit for the motherland by following the online advice of what she believed to be FSB agents, which instructed her to set fire to a random police car, in order to smoke signal their super secret FSB helicopter patrol mission.

She promptly proceeded to walk towards the nearest police station and patriotically set fire to the police car she judged to be most likely to send the biggest smoke cloud, burning it to a crisp.

With Russian ships sabotaging our cables and getting themselves sunk all over, I figured I'd do a thread on arguably the greatest feat of incompetence in Russian naval history.

This is going to be a TLDR of the utterly idiotic voyage of Russia's "Second Pacific Squadron".🧵 Following the revolution of 1905, Tsar Nicholas II figured a short and easy war would be just what he needed to help with his abysmal popularity.

Of all potential candidates for that "short and easy war", in a remarkably well-thought-out move, he picked Imperial Japan.

Although having the possibility to bypass Ukraine through the Trans-Balkan pipeline, Russia's decision to stop gas deliveries to Transnistria starting with January 1st is likely to lead (as intended) to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis aimed at destabilizing Moldova.🧵 Transnistria's presumed strategic reserves are estimated to last for about 2 weeks when it comes to gas consumption and about 50 days when it comes to coal - following this, the Russian controlled territory is likely to face a severe heating and electricity shortage.

Considering the quoted tweet, the many parallels, similarities, and coincidences between Ceaușescu's and Putin's "timelines" came to mind.

I figured I'd do a short thread to highlight them, just for the sake of it. 🧵

https://x.com/Daractenus/status/1870512932641223033

After a gravely ill leader, Romania's 47yo Nicolae Ceaușescu, a little-known figure from security forces, rises to power.

In Russia, a sick Yeltsin is succeeded in by 47yo Vladimir Putin, another quasi-unknown figure from security forces.

OTD 35 years ago, Ceaușescu delivered what would become his final speech, addressing 100k people forcibly gathered there so he could stage a facade of popular support for his regime.

In one of the most iconic moments of modern history, he will lose control of the crowd.🧵 Bucharest would soon be engulfed in revolution, with an ever increasing number of people taking to the streets in the following hours.

To the sound of "Death to the dictator!", people begin to carve the communist coat of arms out of the Romanian flags they were carrying.

With a lot of whatever little is left of our democratic world soon to head towards the polling stations, and since voting our way into idiocracy can occasionally be tricky business, I've refined my list of ten very simple rules follow as to ensure we rise to the occasion.🧵 1. It can never happen to you!

It is essential to acknowledge that ending up in a full-fledged dictatorship is something that can only happen to other people. Of all times and places, you alone were lucky enough to find yourself in the one spot magically immune to it.

To make our collective plunge into idiocracy ever so slightly more convenient, I've compiled a list of seven very simple rules to keep in mind next time you happen to find yourself voting. Enjoy!🧵 1. Cherry-pick the electoral promises!

Of all things said or promised by your favorite candidate, It is of utmost importance to keep in mind he obviously only intends to do the things you agree with. Everything you personally disagree with, he can't or won't actually do.

Since a lot of my compatriots seem to have forgotten just why it was we where all so desperately eager to join NATO in 2004 and the EU in 2007, I figured I'd do a thread comparing Romania today with the "sovereign" Romania of 2003, the pre-EU, pre-NATO one. In 2003, shortly before joining NATO, Romania's GDP stood at $57 billion, while the GDP per capita was a meager $2700.

Today, the country's GDP is almost 7 times bigger, standing at $350 billion while the GDP per capita surpassed $18k, reaching that of a high-income economy.

In less then an hour, the Romanian president will be addressing the nation (and is likely to make some important announcements).

If interested, feel free to bookmark this thread. I'll be updating it with the main points of his speech.🧵 "One candidate benefited from massive illegal exposure despite declaring 0 campaign funds. As per information obtained by our secret services, his campaign was supported by a foreign state."

For anyone interested in the parliamentary elections taking place in Romania today (which are vastly more important than last week's presidential ones), feel free to bookmark this thread.

I'll do my best to do an hourly or so update on it (or whenever something of note comes up). Worth noting there's a strong possibility round one of the presidential elections might get annulled and repeated based on the outcome of today's election. The first exit-polls (which proved wildly inaccurate last week) will be released at 9PM local time (when voting inside the country will have concluded).

The main thing I'll be looking for until then is the voter turnout, which unfortunately has a bit of a glass ceiling this time as people can only vote in their county (Romania is split into 41 counties) of residence.

Another important thing to look for is the distribution of votes in-between urban and rural area. While rural areas historically tend to vote for the current incredibly corrupt ruling party, the urban areas tend to go towards reformist parties. The votes likely to go to the right-wing wackos seem somewhat evenly split between the two.

So far, the turnout looks pretty good and it is likely to be the highest we've had in over a decade.

In order to make it clear to everyone how bad things are about to get for all of us if the pro-Russian Calin Georgescu takes control of Romania, EU's 7th largest country and a vital NATO member, I've translated just enough of his statements for you to get a taste.🧵 About water...

"We do not know what water is. H2O does not mean anything. [...] Every vaccine is a software designed to modifying the spiritual structure of humans and water is the antidote![...] Water from the Carpathian springs can heal any disease. [...] Water is alive!"

‼️In what might be catastrophic news for Romania, for Ukraine and Europe in general, in the first round of the Romanian Presidential Election, an almost completely unknown individual somehow managed to win some 16-18% of the votes (for now, still counting and still growing every minute) and might actually end up qualifying for round 2.

This man does not belong to any party (thus no party machinery to back him), no vast fortune to fund his campaign that we know of and has a face and name not even 1 in 50 Romanians would have recognized 1 month ago while his score tonight was not predicted by any pollster, even remotely.

As I'm writing this, probably every third Romanian just discovered, upon googling the guy, that he is openly pro-Russian, openly and unapologetically pro-Iron Guard (Romanian WW2 fascist movement), violently anti-NATO, anti-EU and an all round terrifying monster of a man (all views which he kept hidden during his "campaign").

I am absolutely convinced, as is everyone else here tonight, that this man is a Russian asset and his meteoric rise from 0% to God knows how much, could not be explained in any other way but by a massive and unprecedented Russian interference. UPDATE: With some 50% of the votes counted, not only is he gonna make it into round two, but he seems to be heading towards a win in this first round.

Again, this is a man probably 9 out of 10 Romanians first heard about tonight.