Romania – Ukraine Strategic Partnership
Romania and the neighboring Ukraine have become strategic partners.
Bogdan Matei, 13.03.2026, 14:00
Romania and Ukraine have been connected, as of Thursday, by a newly established Strategic Partnership, signed in Bucharest by Presidents Nicușor Dan and Volodymyr Zelenskky. It was the second visit to Romania by the leader from Kyiv, after the one in October 2023. “We must not hide it, and say that historically, there was distrust between our countries; this distrust evaporated, I think, at the beginning of the war in 2022,” said President Dan.
Romania and Ukraine share a border of about 700 kilometers, and after the invasion began, millions of Ukrainian refugees, especially women and children, were received in Romania. 200,000 Ukrainians were in Romania at the end of last year, according to official data provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Ukrainian F-16 fighter pilots are also training in Romania, which has also given Ukraine a Patriot air defense system.
Thursday’s discussions between the two heads of state also focused on the joint production of drones in Romania, a field in which, according to military analysts, the Ukrainians, forced by war, have become among the best in the world. President Dan reaffirmed Bucharest’s diplomatic support for Kyiv’s admission to the European Union and NATO, as well as for what he called a “correct position and support that all these organizations can bring to Ukraine in the war it is waging.”
“Very importantly – we talked about the Romanian minority in Ukraine and the openness that Ukraine has, will have, for the Romanian minority. We received guarantees regarding the continuation of the functioning of schools in the Romanian language and for all other rights of the Romanian minority, in accordance with the rights of minorities established by international charters” said Nicuşor Dan.
Volodymyr Zelenskky also signed on Thursday, a decree stipulating the establishment of the Romanian Language Day in his country, on August 31, when it is traditionally celebrated both in Romania and in the Republic of Moldova. Over 400,000 ethnic Romanians live in the neighboring country, mostly in northern Bukovina, northern and southern Bessarabia and the Herța Land, eastern Romanian territories annexed in 1940, following an ultimatum, by the Stalinist Soviet Union and taken over, in 1991, by Ukraine, as the successor state of the USSR. According to the most recent population census, there are about 45,000 ethnic Ukrainians in Romania, almost ten times fewer than the Romanians in Ukraine. Like the other national minorities recognized in Romania, Ukrainians have a representative in the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest. (EE)
