Kremlin Weaponizes Telegram to Manipulate Romanian Election; Channel Promotes Leader of National Conservative Party

The influ­ence of Russ­ian Telegram chan­nels on oper­a­tions in Roma­nia reached alarm­ing lev­els ahead of the recent pres­i­den­tial vote. On May 1, 2025, Balkan Insight report­ed that a quar­ter of Roman­ian-lan­guage Telegram chan­nels are con­sis­tent­ly dis­sem­i­nat­ing pro-Krem­lin pro­pa­gan­da, accord­ing to new research by analy­sis com­pa­ny Open­Minds that exam­ined dis­in­for­ma­tion tar­get­ing Roma­ni­a’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion rerun. The arti­cle begins:

A new report by analy­sis com­pa­ny Open­Minds ahead of the Roman­ian pres­i­den­tial elec­tion rerun on Sun­day claims that 48 of 202 Roman­ian-lan­guage Telegram chan­nels con­sis­tent­ly pro­mote Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da. The elec­tion comes amid con­cerns about for­eign med­dling, par­tic­u­lar­ly from Russ­ian-backed enti­ties alleged­ly using social media to manip­u­late pub­lic opin­ion in Roma­nia on behalf of the far-right. The report, enti­tled ‘End of Democ­ra­cy: How Pro-Russ­ian Telegram Chan­nels Influ­ence Roman­ian Elec­tions’, says that the chan­nels have been active since ear­ly 2022, repost­ing con­tent from Russ­ian state-spon­sored media out­lets such as RT and Sput­nik, as well as mes­sages from the Russ­ian Embassy in Roma­nia and pro-Krem­lin bloggers.

Read more: https://balkaninsight.com/2025/05/01/telegram-is-key-platform-for-pro-russian-influence-in-romania-vote-report/

Key Points

• Open­Minds doc­u­ment­ed over 4,000 unique reposts from Russ­ian sources across these chan­nels, aver­ag­ing 103 pro­pa­gan­da mes­sages per month.
• Far-right can­di­date George Simion receives favor­able cov­er­age despite his stat­ed NATO sup­port, sug­gest­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed tar­get­ing of nation­al­ist sentiment.
• The orig­i­nal Decem­ber 2024 elec­tion was annulled after pro-Russ­ian can­di­date Calin Georges­cu led the first round amid for­eign inter­fer­ence allegations.
• Telegram’s less strict mod­er­a­tion rules make it an ide­al plat­form for rad­i­cal groups banned from main­stream social media despite low­er over­all usage in Romania.

George Simion is the leader of the Alliance for the Union of Roma­ni­ans (AUR), a Roman­ian nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal par­ty found­ed in 2019, rapid­ly ris­ing to promi­nence with a plat­form built on four core pil­lars: fam­i­ly, nation, Chris­t­ian faith, and liberty

How Telegram Amplifies Kremlin Operations and Disinformation

Telegram has become a core plat­form for pro-Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions, with Krem­lin-aligned chan­nels con­sis­tent­ly out­per­form­ing oppo­si­tion voic­es and pro­pa­gan­da surg­ing on Ger­man Telegram chan­nels. The spread of anti­se­mit­ic con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries to jus­ti­fy Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine and the oper­a­tion of “fact-check­ing” chan­nels as dis­in­for­ma­tion sources under­score Telegram’s role as a pro­pa­gan­da ampli­fi­er. Russ­ian state media like Sput­nik and RT have expand­ed to Telegram, lever­ag­ing the platform’s tech­ni­cal fea­tures-includ­ing min­i­mal mod­er­a­tion and large, anony­mous group chats-to bypass restric­tions and reach glob­al audiences.

The emer­gence of bot farms poi­son­ing AI sys­tems with elec­tion pro­pa­gan­da fur­ther demon­strates the evolv­ing sophis­ti­ca­tion of Russ­ian oper­a­tions on Telegram. These dynam­ics are rein­forced by the platform’s pop­u­lar­i­ty among extrem­ist com­mu­ni­ties, as research has mapped how Telegram facil­i­tates the orga­ni­za­tion and spread of rad­i­cal dis­course, par­tic­u­lar­ly among groups like the Russ­ian Impe­r­i­al Move­ment. Telegram’s con­tro­ver­sial sta­tus is height­ened by its loose con­tent mod­er­a­tion, which enables the pro­lif­er­a­tion of dis­in­for­ma­tion, con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, and crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, while its lack of true end-to-end encryp­tion and opaque serv­er infra­struc­ture raise ongo­ing con­cerns about pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty. The platform’s resilience against cen­sor­ship and capac­i­ty for anony­mous mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion have made it a favored tool for both state-linked actors and transna­tion­al influ­ence networks.

Exter­nal References:

1. Dis­in­for­ma­tion on Telegram: Research and con­tent mod­er­a­tion policies

2. Con­spir­a­cy, fake news, crime: Why is Telegram controversial?

3. Map­ping Extrem­ist Dis­course Com­mu­ni­ties on Telegram: The Case of the Russ­ian Impe­r­i­al Movement

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.