Russian interferences in the Republic of Moldova
Next Sunday the citizens of the Republic of Moldova are going to vote for their Parliament
Sorin Iordan, 22.09.2025, 13:55
“The most important poll since the proclamation of independence” or “a crucial vote for the country’s democratic future” – this is how the upcoming election for the Republic of Moldova’s Parliament on September 28 have been described.
The election race for the 101 MP seats brings together 15 political parties, 4 election blocs and 4 independent candidates, but the odds-on favourites, according to the polls, are the ruling pro-European, Party of Action and Solidarity, and two blocs of the pro-Russia opposition, the Patriotic Election Bloc and the Alternative Bloc. PAS, the party of the president of the Republic, Maia Sandu, has pledged to achieve the state’s entry into the European Union by 2030.
On the other side, the pro-Russia opposition wants a rapprochement with Moscow and the Eurasian Economic Union, an entity controlled by the Kremlin. Obviously, a friendlier Republic of Moldova would be in Russia’s advantage mainly in the context of the war it wages on Ukraine. So, the election campaign in the former Romanian-speaking Soviet Republic is unfolding under the pressure of massive interferences from Moscow. The Kremlin has been accused of fuelling the Moldovan political stage through illegal funding, vote buying, staging protest rallies concurrently with an ample disinformation campaign on various social networks
According to the BBC, new evidence has been found about a covert disinformation campaign funded by Russia aimed at bringing to power a pro-Russia government – an undercover reporter met a coordinator with the Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor -presently residing in Moscow – who instructed them to publish fake news about the country’s president Maia Sandu, in exchange for money.
Maia Sandu has referred to the issue in a recent speech before the European Parliament in Strasbourg. She has pointed out the European roadmap of the Republic of Moldova is an issue of survival and that Russia has unleashed all its hybrid arsenals on the election battlefield.
“Interferences in our election, illegal funding from abroad, fake news campaigns, cyber attacks, paid protests, hate-mongering, are all methods aimed at halting Moldova’s European progress,” Maia Sandu went on to say.
In fact, the European Legislature has endorsed a resolution through which it reiterated its support for the European future of the Republic of Moldova in spite of the hybrid threats and interferences from Moscow.
The Moldovan ambassador in Bucharest, Victor Chirilă, has also said that his country must cope with an all-out hybrid war unleashed by the Russian Federation. According to him, the process also involves a part of the Orthodox Church subordinated to the Patriarchate of Moscow. The objective is to fuel distrust in the institutions and the European integration policies. The diplomat has been joined by eight former US ambassadors in Bucharest and Chisinau who, in a public letter, say that a victory of the pro-Russia forces would shaken the regional security, threaten NATO’s eastern flank and offer the Kremlin a new support point for aggression against Romania and Ukraine. The US diplomats have made an appeal to the Moldovan citizens to support their country’s European future and vote for truth, freedom and democracy.
(bill)
