Paul Ivan

Personal account. Foreign policy advisor @RenewEurope. Tweets on Eastern& SE Europe, Russia, US, Romania. In recent years, Senior Policy Analyst at @epc_eu.

[Paul Ivan @paul2ivan]

After seven great years with the European Policy Centre @epc_eu, I'm happy to have joined today the foreign affairs team of @RenewEurope @Europarl_EN

[Kaja Kallas @kajakallas]

The drone explosion in the port of Constanța shows that Russia’s war is increasingly spilling over into EU territory.

I spoke with Foreign Minister @oana_toiu about today's developments and expressed the EU’s full solidarity with Romania.

The ultimate responsibility for what happened rests squarely with Russia. As President Zelenskyy told Putin in an open letter yesterday: Moscow can stop this war any day.

Next week, EU Defence Ministers will discuss how to further ramp up our support for Ukraine and increase the EU’s own defence readiness.

[Dmitri Alperovitch @DAlperovitch]

A remarkable video:
Putin, an obscure 1991 Leningrad bureaucrat, warning against the return of totalitarian rule to Russia—paired with his reaction to those words as President in 2002. The irony writes itself.

[Meduza in English @meduza_en]

Russia has banned imports of potatoes, eggplants, pome fruits, and dried fruit from Armenia. The restrictions come as Armenia prepares for parliamentary elections and amid Yerevan’s growing ties with the EU.
https://t.co/Ui2YmsB0Bj

[Paul Ivan @paul2ivan]

As a consequence of the #Russian drone strike on an apartment building in Galati, #Romania, the Romanian President announced the closure of the Russian consulate in Constanța and declared the Russian consul persona non grata.

[Valérie Hayer @ValerieHayer]

J’apporte toute ma solidarité à la Roumanie touchée cette nuit par un drone russe.

La Russie a choisi l’escalade dans sa guerre d’agression contre l’Ukraine, utilisant des armes toujours plus fortes contre les populations civiles et menaçant gravement les pays voisins membres de l’UE.

Une limite a été franchie.

Nous devons nous montrer intransigeants contre le Kremlin, accroître notre politique de sanctions et notre soutien à Kyiv pour que la sécurité de l’Europe toute entière soit préservée.

[Jack Prandelli @jackprandelli]

Europe's biggest new gas project just started drilling.

First gas in 2027🧵

Neptun Deep.

160 km offshore Romania in the Black Sea.

100 bcm of recoverable gas across two fields Domino and Pelican South.

Operators: OMV Petrom and Romgaz, 50/50.
Total capex: up to €4 billion.

Construction is now fully underway across 3 workstreams simultaneously:

→ First development well spudded at Pelican South. 10 production wells planned total.

→ 160 km, 30-inch subsea pipeline under construction. Saipem holds a $1.75 bn contract.

→ Neptun Alpha production platform being fabricated in Indonesia. Topsides complete. Sail away planned for 2026.

At plateau, the field will produce 8 bcm/year.

Romania's entire current domestic output is 9.2 bcm/year.

Neptun Deep alone will nearly double the country's gas production and turn it into a net exporter.

With Groningen gone and Russian pipeline supply structurally curtailed, the EU has very few large indigenous gas additions arriving this decade.

Neptun Deep is one of them.

Surplus volumes are expected to flow toward Moldova, Slovakia, Hungary and Germany via existing interconnectors.

Romania is on track to become the largest gas producer in the EU.

[Lyle Morris @LyleJMorris]

This exclusive @Reuters report, claiming that China covertly trained 200 Russian soldiers who later deployed to Ukraine, bears greater scrutiny.

Let’s look at the claims:

-Reuters reviewed documents by three European intelligence agencies that claimed that Russia and China signed an agreement in Beijing on July 2, 2025 for two militaries to undergo reciprocal training in both countries. China has reportedly already trained 200 Russian soldiers in locations around Beijing and Nanjing.

-The Chinese training focused on drone and anti-drone warfare for the Russian soldiers. The training also includes “electronic warfare, army aviation and armored infantry.” The agreement “prohibited any media coverage of the visits in either country and said no third parties should be informed.”

-The EU agencies “identified the identities of a handful of Russian military personnel who trained in China and had since been directly involved in combat operations with drones in Ukraine's occupied Crimea and Zaporizhzhia regions.”

-One training course on combined arms warfare for about 50 Russian military personnel took place at the PLA's Ground Forces Army Infantry Academy branch in Shijiazhuang.

-Another took place at a facility in Zhengzhou, focused on air defense training electronic warfare rifles, net-throwing devices and drones to counter incoming drones.

-A third took place at Yibin’s PLA Training Centre for Military Aviation, centered around multimedia presentations and involved the use of flight simulators, training to use several types of FPV drones.

-A fourth took place at ​the Nanjing University of Military Engineering of the PLA Infantry, covering explosives technology, mine construction, de-mining and removal of unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive ​devices.

[Simon Nixon @Simon_Nixon]

There it is at last, the admission that it was Ukraine’s wish to join the EU that led Putin to invade - nothing to do with NATO. Always blindingly obvious but denied for years by anti-European Putin apologists in Europe including Farage and Johnson in Britain

[Raphael Minder @RaphaelMinder]

Poland has carried out as many counter-intelligence investigations over the past two years as in the previous three decades, in response to a significant escalation in Russian espionage and sabotage activity. https://t.co/tJk2djsyL5 via @ft

[Valérie Hayer @ValerieHayer]

The Romanian left Social Democratic Party aligned with the far right party to make Romania’s pro-EU government collapse through a no-confidence vote. This is an irresponsible act at a critical moment.

The stakes for Romania and for Europe are high. Romania should not choose radicality but stability. We deeply regret this alignment with those who undermine the country and Europe, echo Russian interests, question science, and stand against our values.

Bringing down a pro-European government now puts Romania’s future at risk. Stability, found by continuing reforms and unlocking EU funds, is the responsible choice for Romania and for Europe.

With @RenewEurope we stand with @usr_oficial. This is not a time to gamble with Romania’s future, but a time for responsibility.

[Paul Ivan @paul2ivan]

@FrenchResponse The account he retweets,@daily_romania, is actually being run from Serbia. Tells you something about the source.

[Paul Ivan @paul2ivan]

@ilpiotr Interesting article. You might want to check this: "Hawaii lies south of the Tropic of Cancer."

[Maia Sandu @sandumaiamd]

Moldova rises to 31st (+4) in @RSF_en’s 2026 Press Freedom Index — the highest score among EU candidate countries and the only country in Eastern Europe with a ‘satisfactory’ status. More work ahead, but we are on the right path.

[Bridget Brink @AmbBridgetBrink]

I resigned as U.S. Ambassador Ukraine when Trump kept siding with Putin over our democratic partner. Now, my successor is doing the same.

I knew I had to speak out and run for office because siding with dictators is just not who we are.

[Szabolcs Panyi @panyiszabolcs]

Viktor Orbán heads to the US in June, where family members already live, while loyalists seek MAGA think-tank jobs and visas after the election defeat. Meanwhile, oligarchs & cronies are shifting wealth abroad, largely to the Middle East. @floragaramvolgy
https://t.co/M2yTPzOZtr

[Ralf Fuecks @fuecks]

To the point: The Europeans lack a theory of victory for Ukraine, said @ClaudMajor, a defense expert with the German Marshall Fund. The idea was to put enough pressure on Russia to change its calculus, but we never gave the Ukrainians enough to do that. https://t.co/hGVAlI6kTI

[Elon @reelomr]

Contrary to a widespread but mistaken idea, Spain has enormously increased its defence spending. Over the past year, it was the NATO country with the second-largest increase in total value, behind only Germany, and it now ranks 15th in the world (source @SIPRIorg). Moreover...

[Janis Kluge @jakluge]

While Germany spends billions to make gasoline and diesel cheaper, France invests billions to make the country less dependent on fossil fuels.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Vance says that stopping funding for Ukraine is one of his proudest achievements in this administration.

​I’m watching this stunningly cruel speech from Ukraine, as Russia continues to kills us every day. Just today, they killed 8-year-old boy in Cherkasy and five people in Dnipro. Dozens more were injured.

​The military assistance you are so proud of stopping was used to save lives in a war Russia started and continues every day by choice, in a war that only became possible after USA pressured Ukraine into disarming...

​I do not know if Vance can fully comprehend the scale of the tragedy unfolding here: a brutal, illegal war of extermination by Russia, and the slow abandonment by our allies. There is nothing to be proud of. Absolutely nothing.

[Nathalie Loiseau @NathalieLoiseau]

La jeunesse hongroise célèbre la défaite de Viktor Orban en rappelant le cri de 1956 : « Les Russes, dehors. »