Retired NATO general says Romania’s PM-designate blocked key military bridge for years

A retired commander’s Facebook attack

On Sunday, a day after Adrian Veștea was nominated as prime minister of Romania, retired General Dorin Toma posted a sharp critique on Facebook. Toma, who led NATO’s Multinational Division Southeast from 2022 to 2025, accused Veștea of blocking essential military infrastructure projects at the Cincu training ground in Brașov County. He claimed that both the Brașov County Council and the Ministry of Development, which Veștea headed at different periods, showed "disinterest and defective management," foiling efforts to secure military access and mobility for allied forces.

With great surprise I learned of the new appointment for the role of prime minister of Romania. Unfortunately, both for the NATO Command I led from 2022 to 2025 and for the allied contingents deployed in Romania, especially France as the framework nation for the NATO battlegroup, efforts to ensure access and military mobility in the Cincu range area ran up, despite all insistence and official démarches, against the disinterest and defective management of the Brașov County Council and the Ministry of Development. Both institutions were headed during that period by the newly appointed person.

The Voila bridge and its consequences

The core of Toma’s complaint is a bridge over the Olt river near Voila, the only direct route for heavy military convoys heading to Cincu. The project to demolish and rebuild the bridge, under the county council’s responsibility and funded through the national local development programme (PNDL), dragged on for "more than four years, especially due to bureaucratic blockages." As a result, NATO convoys were forced to detour through Sibiu County or secondary roads in the Țara Făgărașului, adding tens of kilometres and hours of delay. Armoured vehicles churning along narrow county roads not designed for heavy tonnage damaged the local infrastructure and raised the risk of mechanical incidents. Toma recalled that French Leclerc tanks could not cross an improvised route over the nearby dam, forcing them to circumvent the area entirely.

Through the complete lack of interest of such figures who held both authority and the necessary funds, the Romanian authorities are effectively sabotaging the collective effort to implement NATO and national plans.

The prime minister-designate pushes back

In an interview with Digi24 on Monday, Adrian Veștea offered a detailed rebuttal. He stressed that the bridge was a major infrastructure project, one of many built during his decade-long leadership of Brașov County. He said the tender was issued three times without attracting any bidders; a single company later submitted an offer but proposed a demolition approach that required additional safety reviews. Veștea argued that demolishing the old bridge weakened surrounding structural elements and, rather than risking a collapse similar to incidents in Vaslui and elsewhere, the county hall commissioned a fresh expert study and redesigned the approach. "Today the bridge at Cincu is an inaugurated bridge, built during my mandate," Veștea said. He added that if the crossing had been viewed as nationally vital, the National Infrastructure Company would have managed it; instead, the county council assumed the project.

The biggest river that crosses Brașov is the Olt, and this bridge he refers to was tendered three times. We had no participants. Later we had one participant who came with an offer, and when it had to implement the project it found a demolition solution for the bridge, which then had to go through a new approval.

A base that NATO allies depend on

The Cincu training ground has become a strategic NATO hub after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It hosts the NATO Battlegroup Romania, with over 1,000 French soldiers and several hundred Spanish and Belgian troops. The facility is used for major exercises that draw thousands of allied personnel. Poor access roads have been a persistent frustration for years; the Voila bridge was finally opened to traffic in the summer of 2025. Toma’s broadside landed just as Veștea was tapped to lead the government, highlighting how infrastructure delays that affect NATO readiness can quickly escalate into a political liability for a new Romanian premier.