Russian Deepfakes and Cash Fuel Moldova Election Interference

Russia’s dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign in Moldo­va high­lights the Kremlin’s lat­est bid to sway elec­tions in a strate­gi­cal­ly frag­ile neigh­bor. On 13 Sep­tem­ber 2025, SBS News report­ed that pro-Russ­ian par­ties are gain­ing trac­tion ahead of par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, fueled by pro­pa­gan­da, deep­fakes, and illic­it cash-for-votes schemes linked to Moscow. The arti­cle begins:

Moldo­va is a coun­try in a dif­fi­cult posi­tion. Lit­er­al­ly. It has Roma­nia and the Euro­pean Union (EU) to the west, Rus­sia to the east and the war in Ukraine on its bor­der. Like many for­mer Sovi­et states, it has grav­i­tat­ed towards Europe in recent years. Pres­i­dent Maia San­du, re-elect­ed last year, is a firm sup­port­er of plans to join the Euro­pean Union. “The cru­el war waged by Rus­sia against Ukraine shows us dai­ly, Europe means lib­er­ty and peace,” she declared recently.

Read more: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/cash-for-votes-deepfakes-and-propaganda-russias-latest-bid-for-influence/xmp4569qg

Key Points

• Inves­ti­ga­tors uncov­ered thou­sands of fake and AI-gen­er­at­ed accounts spread­ing Krem­lin nar­ra­tives tar­get­ing Moldova’s gov­ern­ment and the EU.
• Watch­dog, a local NGO, esti­mates Rus­sia spent more than €150 mil­lion on inter­fer­ence, exceed­ing 1 per­cent of Moldova’s GDP.
• Pro-Russ­ian oli­garch Ilan Shor promised pro­test­ers cash pay­ments, echo­ing pre­vi­ous reports of Russ­ian-fund­ed vot­er bribery.
• Moldova’s rul­ing PAS warns the Patri­ot­ic Bloc could halt EU inte­gra­tion and align the coun­try with Moscow’s geopo­lit­i­cal aims.

Russian Influence Operations in Moldova: Bribes, Disinformation, and Hybrid War

Rus­sia has esca­lat­ed its cam­paign to sway Moldova’s elec­tions through finan­cial, dig­i­tal, and pro­pa­gan­da efforts. Ana­lysts describe a surge in hybrid tac­tics designed to desta­bi­lize the polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment, with local observers not­ing active influ­ence oper­a­tions around Moldova’s elec­tions. Inves­ti­ga­tions sug­gest Moscow poured hun­dreds of mil­lions of euros into bribery and vote-buy­ing, includ­ing large-scale finan­cial trans­fers for elec­tion inter­fer­ence.

Inter­na­tion­al respons­es have emerged as well, with the Unit­ed King­dom sanc­tion­ing a pro-Russ­ian net­work linked to ref­er­en­dum bribes. Despite these mea­sures, Moldo­va has con­tin­ued to file for­mal protests against Russ­ian elec­tion med­dling, high­light­ing the per­sis­tent chal­lenge posed by Krem­lin-backed dis­in­for­ma­tion and hybrid war­fare in East­ern Europe.

Inde­pen­dent report­ing shows the Kremlin’s toolk­it goes beyond dig­i­tal manip­u­la­tion. The Finan­cial Times doc­u­ment­ed how Moscow-backed net­works use priests and social media bots to sway Moldovan vot­ers, under­scor­ing the breadth of tac­tics applied. AP high­light­ed Pres­i­dent Maia Sandu’s warn­ings of a Russ­ian “hybrid war”, com­bin­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion, ener­gy coer­cion, and insti­tu­tion­al pres­sure to desta­bi­lize the state.

ISW analy­sis fur­ther details Russia’s renewed efforts to entrench influ­ence in Moldo­va, stress­ing that Moscow views the coun­try as crit­i­cal lever­age against Ukraine and the EU. Togeth­er these find­ings illus­trate how Moldo­va remains on the front line of Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions, vul­ner­a­ble to both direct finan­cial cor­rup­tion and sus­tained pro­pa­gan­da efforts.

Exter­nal references:

• Rus­sia Uses Priests and Bots to Sway Moldo­va Election
• Moldovan Pres­i­dent Warns of Russ­ian ‘Hybrid War’
• Rus­sia Con­tin­ues Efforts to Regain Influ­ence over Moldova

Dis­claimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.