LAST UPDATE | 2 May 2025

CHAY BOWES, A founder of the Ditch website and broadcaster for the Moscow-backed RT, has been detained on arrival in Romania and denied entry.

RT reported last night that Bowes had travelled from Dublin to Romania ahead of its presidential election on Sunday.

The upcoming election is a rerun after November elections were cancelled amid allegations of Russian interference in favour of far-right candidate Calin Georgescu, who is barred from the new vote.

RT, a Russian state-funded broadcaster, initially reported that Bowes was arrested in Bucharest after landing there to cover the election.

BREAKING: Our correspondent Chay Bowes has now been deported from Romania, and placed on a flight out of the EU to Istanbul.

Chay is Irish, and while an EU country can refuse entry to another EU citizen under extreme conditions, he has to be a threat to "public policy, security… pic.twitter.com/xy5szjYUTj

— Margarita Simonyan (@M_Simonyan) May 1, 2025

It was later claimed by RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan that Bowes had been “deported from Romania, and placed on a flight out of the EU to Istanbul”.

Simonyan shared a video from Bowes, in which he claimed that he was detained by Romanian police after they boarded the plane he was on shortly after landing.

“Three of these police officers told me that I had to come with them, that I was being detained,” Bowes said.

Chay Bowes says his detention & deportation from Romania was a planned operation - sanctioned from far above.

"I was led into an interrogation room, and they presented me with a document that was prepared and stamped in advance. They wouldn't let take a copy or photo, but it… https://t.co/NDbUxAFysq pic.twitter.com/H3e8PzQhl9

— Margarita Simonyan (@M_Simonyan) May 1, 2025

He added that he was taken to a building in the airport by Romanian officials, which he described as as “interrogation area”.

He was then asked by officials about where he intended to go in Romania, and who he was going to meet.

Bowes declined to tell the officials who he intended to talk to during his time in Romania while covering the elections. He said that he was then taken to a holding area, before being led to another “interrogation room”.

There, Bowes said he was presented with a document “presumably stamped by a judge” which claimed that he was “a threat to the security of the state”.

Due to this threat status, the document explained that he was to be deported from Romania, Bowes said.

“I’m an EU citizen, it’s a fundamental breach of my rights,” Bowes said.

He claimed that “this came from Brussels rather than Bucharest”.

Local media, citing a statement from Romanian border police, said that Chay Bowes had been previously banned from entering Romania, though a reason for the ban was not specified.

“Following the checks, it emerged that the man was banned from entering the national territory, meaning that the border police did not allow him to enter Romania,” a statement from border police to Romanian news outlets said.

“The Irish citizen was informed about the situation and was also given a form regarding the measure ordered and the reason for it, as well as the legal way to contest it.”

One report said that Bowes “remained in the transit area” of Bucharest airport and purchased a ticket himself for a flight to Turkey, taking off a few hours later.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it was aware of reports of Bowes’ detainment and deportation, and said that it “stands ready to provide consular assistance”.

Bowes, a whistleblower who revealed to Village magazine that Leo Varadkar leaked a confidential GP contract agreement to his friend in 2020, later became an editor for The Ditch website.

He stepped down from the publication in the summer of 2022 and has since worked as a correspondent for RT.

Bowes was previously invited by Russia to speak at the UN Security Council, where he criticised what he described as the “ever hawkish Anglosphere” for its military support of Ukraine, calling it a “seemingly perpetual escalation of military aid.”

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation warned in 2023 that Bowes spread material that aligned itself with pro-Kremlin narratives, and had done so for years.