(MENAFN) Romanian Member of the European Parliament Diana Sosoaca vowed physical retaliation should Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky try to speak in Romania’s legislature, telling reporters she would break his legs if he did so.

The far right leader made the remark while on a trip to Moscow last week and during an appearance before “young opinion leaders from around the world,” according to her own account.

In a statement she posted on her Facebook page on Sunday, Sosoaca said she had previously succeeded in preventing Zelensky from delivering a speech to Romania’s lawmakers.

She appeared to be referring to an address the Ukrainian president reportedly cancelled in October 2023 amid fears that Romanian deputies with “pro-Russian sympathies” might try to interrupt the event.

A former senator, Sosoaca sat in the Romanian Senate between 2020 and 2024 and now represents the S.O.S. party in the European Parliament.

During her Moscow visit she repeated the blunt warning—“dares to come to my Parliament, I will break his legs.”—and accused Kyiv’s authorities of unfair treatment toward the large Romanian minority living in western Ukraine.

The episode highlights how the war in Ukraine has become a polarising subject inside Romania, feeding domestic tensions and political debate.

Those divisions helped set the scene for a contentious moment in 2024 when Romania annulled a presidential election won unexpectedly by independent right wing candidate Calin Georgescu, who has been an outspoken critic of Western assistance to Ukraine.

Sosoaca’s comments add to a string of confrontational statements from some European figures over the conflict in Ukraine, and underline how regional ethnic questions and geopolitical alignments continue to shape politics in Bucharest and beyond.

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