Few national contexts offer a more alarming picture of Russian malign foreign interference than what is currently happening in Moldova. As the country readies for critical elections on October 20, it also faces a barrage of Russian hybrid attacks of remarkable scale and intensity against its democratic core and European future. The stakes for enduring and defending against this interference onslaught could not be higher for the country and Europe as a whole.
The Strategy
The consequential nature of this Sunday’s elections, when Moldovans will both elect their president and decide via referendum on the country’s EU path, explains a lot about why the country has emerged as such a prized target for Russian hybrid offensives. On the ballot is not only the incumbent, strongly pro-Western President Maia Sandu who is seeking a second term at the helm of the small Eastern European republic, but also the potential of enshrining EU membership as a strategic goal in the country’s constitution, which could make any future potential efforts to derail that process much more difficult. Expectedly, Moscow sees both these scenarios as directly antithetical to its own interests, as it aims to prevent and revert trends that have seen Chișinău gradually slip out of its orbit of influence.
Critically, while these two pivotal elections are at the epicenter of Russia’s malign operations, Moscow’s attempt to target Moldova long precedes and will likely long follow Sunday’s vote.
Indeed, Russian hybrid attacks against Moldova have sharply increased since at least the spring of 2022, as Moscow’s full-scale of Ukraine also sharpened its perceived need to secure politically favorable outcomes in the wider neighborhood. A first warning of what Russia is capable and willing to do was its intervention in the 2023 Moldovan local elections. Moldova’s Information and Security Service reported that Moscow invested approximately $55 million to influence the vote, deploying illegal financing and disinformation tactics to sway the outcome, helping pro-Russian candidates succeed and deepening divisions in key cities such as Bălți and Orhei. Fast forward to now, when Moscow wants to secure not just the best possible result for its preferred presidential candidate(s), but also attack the referendum vote, which could be deemed invalid if turnout does not pass the 33% threshold or the vote share in favor of EU membership does not exceed 50%. And looking ahead past this Sunday, Russia has already set its sights on the upcoming parliamentary elections next year, intent on trying to facilitate the entry of pro-Russian political forces into parliament or prevent pro-European forces from forming a parliamentary majority.
The Tactics
In service of this strategy, Russia has left no stone unturned in its interference efforts, launching attacks of extraordinary volume, scope, and diversity.
With this month’s election milestone fast approaching, a vital part of this repertoire has been relentless and sophisticated disinformation campaigns that intended to upend the country’s EU course and weaken the authority of, and trust in, pro-European and pro-Western political figures. Incumbent President Sandu has borne the brunt of many of these attacks, even serving as the main figure in several deepfake videos generated using artificial intelligence, where she has been falsely depicted advocating pro-Russia policies, resigning and urging people to support a pro-Russia party, or making offensive remarks against certain groups of voters as a way of undermining her credibility ahead of the elections.
Information operations like these have been routinely complemented by reported hack-and-leak operations, hacking attacks against critical entities like the Central Electoral Commission, an increasing number of cyber incursions against other government, corporate or media targets, and even more kinetic offensives, such as subversive sabotage acts and fake bomb threats aimed at instilling a sense of danger and anxiety in society. As a batch of sanctions imposed by the EU in 2023 demonstrates, the Kremlin was also involved in efforts to destabilize Moldova “through for instance the planning of violent demonstrations, financial misconduct, unauthorized export of capital and support for the Russian Federal Security Service projects”.
But perhaps at the apex of its interference efforts stands several malign financing campaigns undertaken by Moscow or its affiliates aimed to buy influence and–where necessary–votes. In April this year, Moldovan authorities detained more than 100 passengers at Chișinău airport for smuggling cash into the country that was reportedly intended to be used to bribe protestors and voters, in a move led by Kremlin-linked fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor. And in a spectacular announcement earlier this month, Moldovan police and anti-corruption prosecutors alleged that Shor and his affiliates had funneled more than $15 million in Russian funds into the accounts of over 130,000 Moldovan citizens–a staggering amount for Moldovan politics, reaching 5% of all Moldovans residing in the country, according to some estimates–in the past month alone as a means of adversely affecting their vote in the presidential election and EU referendum. These incidents demonstrate not just the infiltration capacity of Moscow and its proxies despite international and domestic bans and restrictions on Russian financial flows, but also a penchant for constantly refining how they conduct these operations. It is no wonder that these machinations mirror tactics tested in the past, as in the May 2023 elections in the semi-autonomous, Russian-speaking majority Gagauzia region, where the same network reportedly managed to buy sufficient votes to elect pro-Russia governor Evghenia Guțul.
The Response
Faced with this hybrid attack avalanche, Moldovan authorities and a burgeoning anti-interference community have taken meaningful steps to push back. For a young democracy of modest means and limited institutional capacity, creating a protective net against foreign interference within and around the country has resembled a case of successfully managing to build a plane while flying it.
Moldova’s ability to better protect its election processes, disrupt and combat Russian narratives, monitor the flow of disinformation, and counteract the influence of dirty money that supports malign operations have been aided by several measures, including: the adoption of a new electoral code in December 2022 that introduced stricter regulations to prevent illegal campaign financing; the unveiling of a new National Security Strategy at the end of 2023, which for the first time acknowledges Russia as an existential threat to national security, and aims to strengthen the resilience of state institutions; and the creation of new institutions such as the Centre for Strategic Communications and Combating Disinformation and the National Cybersecurity Agency. The EU has also deployed a civilian mission in the country since May 2023 to help Chișinău face foreign interference. The bloc’s recently adopted €1.8 billion Growth Plan for 2025-2027, the largest financial package offered to Moldova since the country’s independence, acting as a “Marshall Plan for Moldova”, is designed to further bolster the country and bring it closer to EU membership.
The combination of these and many other similar measures has so far largely succeeded. As analysts observe, Moscow’s tangible successes since 2022 have been modest, if not limited, despite some notable exceptions.
But what Russia and its proxies are doing in the country is expansive and relentless, launching interference offensives that are unprecedented for Moldova and extraordinary even by international standards. This means that Moldova’s continued resilience faces enormous risks in the face of these attacks that are meant to exhaust its defenses, sow internal divisions, and stall its reforms and preparedness.
Even if the outcome of this week’s elections proves favorable for the pro-EU camp in the country, Moldova should therefore continue to receive sufficient support and appropriate attention in its efforts to thwart Russian hybrid aggression. While the impact of these actions is primarily felt within the country’s borders, Russia’s interference onslaught in Moldova carries alarming warnings that reverberate way beyond. Moldova, after all, not only serves as a small but powerful testing ground for Russian successes in the critical domain of foreign interference, but also a vital laboratory for how itself and other democracies can best fight back.
The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the author alone.
