Romanian Member of the European Parliament Diana Șoșoacă, a far-right political activist and Kremlin supporter who is banned from entering Ukraine, has threatened to “break the legs” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Șoșoacă made the remark during a meeting in Moscow organized by the pro-Kremlin Friends of Russia group led by propagandist Pietro Stramezzi and Russia’s LDPR party.

“If he dares to come to my parliament, I will break his legs! Let him not dare to speak in my parliament,” she said, as quoted on her.

She added: “Why do I say ‘my parliament’? Because the Romanian Constitution states that we, parliamentarians, represent the Romanian people – the only ones who can defend its sovereignty and independence. I am obliged to protect my country from the enemies of my people.”

According to media reports from 2023, Zelensky’s planned address to the Romanian parliament was canceled after opposition from pro-Russian lawmakers, including Șoșoacă, who called the Ukrainian leader a “Nazi.” On that day, she appeared in parliament with a map depicting a so-called “Greater Romania.”

During her speech on Oct. 19, Șoșoacă again claimed that about a million Romanians in Ukraine face “oppression,” falsely asserting that they are forbidden to “speak Romanian” or practice Orthodoxy.

In her Facebook post, she claimed her address “ended with applause,” praising her own “clarity of arguments” and “depth of Christian and nationalist message.”

Șoșoacă, known for her far-right and Eurosceptic positions, was elected to the Romanian Senate in 2020 from the Alliance for the Union of Romania (AUR) party before being excluded from the group’s caucus and forming her own movement, S.O.S. România, in 2021. Since July 2024, she has served as a Member of the European Parliament.

She rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic by opposing quarantine restrictions and vaccination campaigns. She holds anti-immigration views and was fined for hate speech in late 2021. Russia’s state-run Sputnik news agency named her their “politician of the year 2021 in Romania.”

Șoșoacă has repeatedly demanded the “revision of borders” and the return of territories she considers “historically Romanian,” including Northern Bukovina, Herța, Budzhak, and Snake Island.

In 2023, she submitted a bill to cancel the 1997 Good Neighborliness Treaty between Ukraine and Romania.

She has also called Ukraine an “artificial state,” criticized support for Kyiv in its war with Russia, and denounced Romania’s membership in the EU and NATO, claiming they “drag the country into foreign conflicts.”

In 2024, during her first address to the European Parliament, she claimed that aid to Ukraine was leading to the “destruction of Romania” and urged an end to weapon supplies to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In 2025, Șoșoacă sent a so-called “message of peace” to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, calling for the return of territories she claims Ukraine “holds illegally.”