Securing Democracy Dispatch

Until recently, US-funded media outlets provided an alternative to Russian state propaganda in Moldova. But now, after the Trump administration’s funding cuts, trusted US-funded broadcasters “are slowly but steadily receding from view”, crippling media pluralism ahead of Moldova’s pivotal parliamentary election last week “to the seeming benefit of Russian propagandists”, Senior Fellow Bret Schafer and Open-Source Intelligence Analyst Larissa Doroshenko find in new analysis.

Russian diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week:

• False-Flag Provocations Against NATO: Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) accused Ukraine of planning a false-flag provocation against Poland using Russian and Belarusian regiments fighting for Ukraine. Russian and Hungarian media also reported that Ukraine’s armed forces are planning attacks on logistical hubs in Poland and Romania. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speculated that Ukrainian special services, with their British counterparts’ assistance, are using Russian manufactured drones to falsely suggest drone attacks are of Russian origin. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova threatened that such plans would lead to “the imminent outbreak of World War [III]”. Life.ru quoted Florian Philippot, the head of France’s Patriots party, who warned of a “large-scale multilateral slaughter on the European continent” and Armando Mema of Finland’s Alliance of Freedom party, who alleged that Europe’s goal is “to start a direct war with Russia”.
• Moldova’s Parliamentary Elections: Russian officials and state media claimed that Moldova’s parliamentary elections were fraudulent after the pro-EU, incumbent Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) won a clear parliamentary majority. Sergei Lavrov falsely stated that the pro-Russian “Patriotic Bloc” gained more votes within Moldova than PAS. RT further elaborated that the outcome was “adjusted” overnight to reverse the opposition bloc’s supposed lead. (There is no publicly available evidence to support this accusation.) Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that, despite “violations and inconsistencies,” at least half of Moldovans support a “good relationship with Russia”. Zakharova blamed Brussels for “open interference” and “financial blackmail of Moldovan voters”, declaring that European politicians explicitly linked financial support for Moldova to a PAS victory. TASS cited Igor Dodon, the former president and leader of Moldova’s Party of Socialists, who pledged to challenge the results of “the falsified parliamentary elections” in courts and through street protests.

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week:

• UNGA: PRC messaging continued to cover the 80th UN General Assembly (UNGA) last week, notably highlighting the lofty rhetoric of PRC Premier Li Qiang’s speech, in which he spoke of the importance of “fairness and justice” and global “solidarity and cooperation”. The Global Times anticipated that, “as some Western nations increasingly withdraw from multilateral bodies”, Beijing’s “centrality” would increase. As a point of comparison, CGTN America posted a clip of US President Donald Trump’s speech to the assembly spliced with other world leaders’ statements that directly contradicted Trump’s words about climate change and global conflicts. T-House later produced a half-hour-long segment dedicated to comparing the “two visions” of the international order, with a chyron labeling the difference “humanity’s values vs. American values”.
• Israel’s Foreign Relations: PRC state media covered the large diplomatic walk-out at UNGA during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, and YouTube, with a CGTN opinion piece describing it as “a global call for justice”. CGTN also relayed the pro-Palestine protests that took place outside of the United Nations building. CGTN Europe broadcast Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s statement that Israel’s military actions had “crossed the line” and Phoenix TV amplified North Korea’s recognition of Palestine. PRC messaging also attacked the United States, sharing Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s accusations that Washington “allows missiles to be launched on children” and asking whether the country is “blocking justice” and “standing against the world.”

Iranian diplomats and state media focused on one main narrative this week:

• Trump’s Gaza Plan: Last week, Iranian state messengers dedicated significant coverage to denouncing Trump’s 20-point proposal to end the war in Gaza. Iranian state media predominantly criticized the peace plan for being skewed in Israel’s favor and denying Palestinian rights, calling it a “colonial real estate project” that permits Israel’s continued occupation of Gaza under the guise of “transition”. IRNA criticized the absence of Arab leaders in the decision-making room and claimed it proved Netanyahu’s “dominance” over Trump. Press TV amplified the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s comments calling the plan a “document for war” rather than a ceasefire agreement, while Iran’s Spanish-language outlet, HispanTV, suggested the plan was “hiding” a larger agenda. Other outlets raised skepticism about the proposal’s outcome, mockingly calling it “Netanyahu’s rejection plan” and stressing the fact that this is the twelfth time this year Trump claimed Israel and Hamas were close to reaching an agreement, to no avail.  

Pro-Kremlin influence actors push false fraud claims in 2025 Moldovan elections: Russian state media and pro-Kremlin social-media accounts have been promoting false claims that Moldova’s parliamentary elections last week were marred by widespread fraud, including amplifying manipulated videos purporting to show ballot stuffing at diaspora voting centers in other countries and spreading a fabricated video of ballots marked for pro-Russian parties being burned. On election day, suspected Russian bomb threats also disrupted voting at Moldova’s embassy in Brussels and other voting centers in the United States, Romania, Italy, and Spain. Senior Fellow Bret Schafer assesses, “It’s the same playbook on repeat. The Kremlin has a long history of not only engaging in interference but accusing others of doing the same, so it was entirely predictable that they would fabricate claims to undermine the legitimacy of the vote  once the results were clear.”

In Case You Missed It

• Czech intelligence services discovered a coordinated network of at least one thousand TikTok accounts, many of which are bot accounts, promoting pro-Kremlin narratives and gaining millions of views weekly, ahead of this weekend’s elections in Czechia.
• A coordinated pro-Russian campaign on X spread false claims that France would send its toxic waste for disposal in Moldova, disseminating pictures of falsified documents and fabricated television news videos with AI voiceovers.
• A former aide to a German far-right politician was found guilty of sharing sensitive information with the PRC, including by spying on dissidents and tracking German military shipments.
• Cyberattacks against EU public institutions accounted for 38.5% of cyber incidents against all entities in the EU in the past year, with about four-fifths of those attacks suspected to be ideologically or geopolitically motivated, according to the EU’s cybersecurity agency.

The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the author alone.