Official Bucharest did not disclose in its reports the volume and other details of military aid to Ukraine that has been delivered since the beginning of russia's full-scale invasion. The only exceptions are reports indicating that Romania has supplied Ukraine with a battery of Patriot air defense system and that a training center at the Romanian Air Force's 86th air base is training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 aircraft.
Therefore, regarding Romania's defense supplies, we can only make assumptions based on publicly available data. Romanians are beginning to complain that classifying information from this segment is pointless, as the Cugir labeling revealed everything.
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The Romanian publication called Defense Romania released a podcast featuring military correspondent Radu Hossu, who, as part of his work, had the opportunity to visit the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the most intense front-line areas.
The Romanian military correspondent expressed the view that the official policy of concealing Romania's supplies to Ukraine lacks practical sense.
As an example, Romanian-made small arms and ammunition bear the Cugir marking, which indicates the place of production - the Cugir Arms Factory (Uzina Mecanică Cugir), which was particularly active during the Warsaw Pact and now is part of RomArm state defense corporation.
Additionally, this secrecy creates problems for Romania, as russian propaganda actively exploits the issue for disinformation campaigns against official Bucharest.
According to Radu Hossu, the Romanian authorities may have concealed data on actual supplies to the Armed Forces of Ukraine for misguided reputational reasons, as aiding a country defending itself against aggression is always moral.
Against this backdrop, the authors of Defense Romania have so far limited themselves to speculating on the range of Romanian supplies to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to them, Romania's supplies could include small arms and ammunition from Uzina Mecanică Cugir, APR-40 MLRS, 122-mm howitzers (likely Romanian copies of the 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer), and TAB-71 armored personnel carriers from the Warsaw Pact.
On behalf of Defense Express, it is worth noting that the main question in this case is whether Romania transferred its decommissioned MiG-29s and T-72s, which were stored in conservation, as part of military assistance to Ukraine in February 2022.
Earlier Defense Express reported that Romania had provided the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a BM-21 Grad MLRS copy called the APR-40.
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