Soured co-founders of a conspiracy-minded fringe organization called Group for Romania (GPR) are distancing themselves from the group and its anti-Western message after it appealed for Chinese help and Russian intervention to restore lost Romanian "sovereignty."

In recent weeks the group -- which has included university lecturers, a former judge, economists, as well as prominent actors -- appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping for salvation from a "Judeo-Euro-Atlantic political regime."

Some GPR defectors have criticized that message as "shameful" and "unforgivable," and a well-known Romanian political scientist has described it as a risky result of "hallucination."

In a March 26 online petition titled Communique No. 9 On Relations With The Russian Federation, addressed to Putin and other Russian leaders, GPR listed perceived racial, ethno-nationalist, and historical grievances and said that "Romania has fallen from the status of a colony to the status of a territory under foreign military occupation. We hope, Mr. President Putin, that you will help Romania in future historical moments to become a sovereign country again." By April 5, the petition had attracted 17 signatures.

Days later, Communique No. 10 was directed at China and urged Xi and Beijing to help Romania "escape the underdevelopment to which it was condemned by the Judeo-Westerners who seized the country in the decades after the assassination of former President Nicolae Ceausescu," the hated communist dictator who was summarily executed along with his wife in December 1989.