Russian Influence in Moldova: Kremlin Targets 2025 Elections

Russ­ian influ­ence in Moldo­va is the sub­ject of a 03 Sep­tem­ber 2025 report from Insikt Group. The report details mul­ti­ple active Rus­sia-linked influ­ence oper­a­tions aim­ing to desta­bi­lize Moldova’s Sep­tem­ber 28 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions and under­mine the country’s path toward Euro­pean Union acces­sion. The report begins:

Ahead of Moldova’s Sep­tem­ber 28, 2025, par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, Insikt Group is observ­ing mul­ti­ple active Rus­sia-linked influ­ence oper­a­tions (IOs) seek­ing to desta­bi­lize the elec­tions and derail Moldova’s Euro­pean Union (EU) acces­sion. As of this writ­ing, the IOs ana­lyzed in this report are unlike­ly to have achieved any sub­stan­tial suc­cess­es in shap­ing pub­lic opin­ion or guid­ing dis­course around the upcom­ing elec­tions. The Russ­ian IOs and cor­re­spond­ing net­works ana­lyzed in this report — Oper­a­tion Over­load, Oper­a­tion Under­cut, Foun­da­tion to Bat­tle Injus­tice, Por­tal Kom­bat, and oth­er Russ­ian influ­ence assets — are con­sis­tent­ly pro­ject­ing an unfa­vor­able view of Moldovan Pres­i­dent Maia San­du and the rul­ing Par­ty of Action and Sol­i­dar­i­ty (PAS) to almost cer­tain­ly manip­u­late inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic pub­lic per­cep­tions by fram­ing Moldova’s sit­ting lead­er­ship as cor­rupt and counter to Moldova’s interests.

Read more: Record­ed Future – Insikt Group

Key Points

• Mul­ti­ple Rus­sia-linked influ­ence oper­a­tions are attempt­ing to desta­bi­lize Moldova’s Sep­tem­ber 2025 elec­tions and under­mine EU accession.
• Oper­a­tion Over­load and the Foun­da­tion to Bat­tle Injus­tice are tar­get­ing Pres­i­dent Maia San­du and Moldova’s rul­ing Par­ty of Action and Solidarity.
• Oper­a­tion Under­cut is exploit­ing fears of elec­tion rig­ging, war with Rus­sia, and eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty among Moldovan voters.
• Shor-linked media out­lets and Prav­da Moldo­va are ampli­fy­ing pro-Krem­lin mes­sag­ing through social media ads and online aggregators.

Russian Hybrid Influence Campaign Targets Moldova Elections with Disinformation and Vote Buying

Russia’s bid to sub­vert Moldova’s demo­c­ra­t­ic tra­jec­to­ry has esca­lat­ed into a full-spec­trum hybrid cam­paign, lever­ag­ing coor­di­nat­ed dis­in­for­ma­tion and sys­temic vote-buy­ing to dis­cred­it pro-Euro­pean lead­ers and inflame region­al divi­sions in Gagauzia and Transnis­tria. Offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tions revealed that Russ­ian-backed actors dis­pensed rough­ly €200 mil­lion to manip­u­late elec­toral out­comes and a piv­otal EU acces­sion ref­er­en­dum, with sanc­tioned oli­garch Ilan Shor alleged­ly orches­trat­ing a net­work that paid tens of thou­sands of Moldovans to oppose clos­er ties with the West.

Despite these efforts, which includ­ed UK sanc­tions against pro-Russ­ian oper­a­tives for mass ref­er­en­dum bribery, Moldova’s gov­ern­ment nar­row­ly pre­vailed in both the pres­i­den­tial con­test and the EU vote, under­scor­ing the inten­si­ty of Krem­lin inter­fer­ence. Russ­ian tac­tics are not lim­it­ed to Moldo­va; intel­li­gence assess­ments show that elec­tion inter­fer­ence pat­terns across East­ern Europe have grown increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed, blend­ing cyber oper­a­tions, illic­it finance, and social media manip­u­la­tion, while Euro­pean offi­cials warn that broad­er desta­bi­liza­tion cam­paigns con­tin­ue to exploit soci­etal frac­tures and insti­tu­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

The Kremlin’s ulti­mate aim appears to be the cre­ation of a pli­ant, Moscow-aligned gov­ern­ment in Chișinău, serv­ing as both a bul­wark against NATO expan­sion and a poten­tial launch­pad for fur­ther hybrid oper­a­tions deep­er into Europe.

Exter­nal References:

1. Rus­si­a’s Hybrid War Against Moldova
2. Moldo­va Is the Test­ing Ground for Rus­si­a’s Dis­in­for­ma­tion Machine
3. Rus­si­a’s hybrid war on Moldovan democracy

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.