SECURITY, SAFETY, AND FREEDOM IN ROMANIA: AN ANALYSIS OF GENERATION Z PERCEPTION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE

The “special military operation” launched by the Russian Federation in Ukraine at the beginning of 2022 had a strong impact on the European security environment. The full-scale invasion marked an unwelcome return of armed conflict within the continent and an unprecedented humanitarian situation. It was also the first time that members of Generation Z are seeing what war really looks like. The existing literature provides extensive studies about Gen Z's perception of various issues like social and political values, workplace, and quality of life. However, very little is known about young citizens' perception of security, safety, and freedom after the war in Ukraine started. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature and analyses how Gen Z's perception of security, safety, and freedom has changed in the current security environment. The analysis is based on a single case study – in Romania, and semi-structured interviews conducted in September-October 2022 with young citizens coming from different socio-demographic profiles. The main purpose is to explain how the conflict affected the perceptions variation of the abovementioned indicators, in a post-communist state where those under 25yo did not experience a large-scale military conflict so close to our borders.