Soviet Occupation of Romania

The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania. The fate of the eastern territories of Romania occupied by the Red Army and eventually incorporated into the Soviet Union is treated separately in the article on Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

During the Eastern Front offensive of 1944, the Soviet Army occupied Romania. The northwestern part of Moldavia was occupied as a result of armed combat that took place between the months of May and August of that year, while Romania was still an ally of Nazi Germany. The rest of the territory was occupied after Romania changed sides in World War II, as a result of the royal coup launched by King Michael on August 23, 1944. On that date, the King announced that Romania had unilaterally ceased all military actions against the Allied forces, accepted the Allied armistice offer, and joined the war against the Axis Powers. As no formal armistice offer had been extended yet, the Red Army occupied most of Romania as enemy territory prior to the signing of the Moscow Armistice of September 12, 1944.

The armistice convention and eventually the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 provided a legal basis for the Soviet military presence in Romania, which lasted until 1958, reaching a peak of some 615,000 in 1946.

Soviet authors and the 1952 Constitution of Romania referred to the events of 1944 as the "liberation of Romania by the glorious Soviet Army". On the other hand, most Romanian and Western sources use the term "Soviet occupation of Romania," some applying it to the whole period from 1944 to 1958.