Moldova’s European aspirations under threat
Chisinau is in a precarious position, seeking accession to the European Union while facing persistent Russian meddling.
In a nutshell
- Russian meddling is a pervasive threat to Moldova’s fragile democracy
- Pro-European sentiment faces challenges from Transnistria and Gagauzia
- Corruption and malign Russian activities jeopardize Moldova’s EU candidacy
With a population of just over 3 million, Moldova is among the smaller countries of Europe. It is also by far the poorest after war-torn Ukraine. Its geographical location between Ukraine and Romania has not been helpful in attracting outside interest. Yet, over the decade-long Russian war of terror against Ukraine, it has become a geopolitical hotspot that requires considerable attention.
On October 20, the country conducted two parallel votes, the outcomes of which will have substantial long-term consequences. One was the first round of a presidential election, where the incumbent pro-European President Maia Sandu faced the pro-Russian candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo. The other was a referendum on a constitutional change designed to smooth the country’s path toward membership in the European Union.
As the fateful day approached, the pro-European camp was upbeat. Polls indicated that both the presidential election and the referendum would yield positive results. However, by the end of the day, moods had soured. President Sandu did emerge as the winner in the first round of the presidential vote, but with a much narrower margin than expected. Having secured only 42.5 percent of the vote, against 26 percent for Mr. Stoianoglo, she would have to face a second round on November 3, where the outcome was deemed anything but secure. However, the incumbent Ms. Sandu was victorious in the runoff election, taking 55.3 percent of the vote compared to 44.7 percent for the pro-Russian candidate. Three days later, Mr. Stoianoglo conceded defeat.
‘Unprecedented assault on democracy’
The outcome of the referendum was an even greater frustration. Several polls predicted an easy win for the Yes vote in the runup. When polling closed, voter turnout was 51 percent, only just enough to make the results valid. As vote counting was nearing completion, the tally of votes against was projected to garner a very narrow majority. The final result was a razor-thin margin in favor of the referendum, at 50.46 percent; not what the pro-Europe camp had hoped for.
What few had expected was the extent of this meddling and the degree of success that it garnered.
Given that the referendum was a show of voter preference and not legally binding, a negative outcome would not have ended the game. The government could have continued talks with the EU on accession, which have been ongoing since June of this year. The great upset was that the referendum had been intended to demonstrate broad popular support for the accession process. Without a clear majority in favor, that process will now have to proceed under a cloud of doubt about popular sentiment.
In a deeply disappointed reaction, President Sandu claimed to have evidence of some 300,000 votes having been bought via foreign interference, branding it “fraud of unprecedented scale” and an “unprecedented assault on democracy.” Warnings had been issued for weeks before the election, suggesting that Russia was gearing up to ensure that both votes went against the pro-European forces. What few had expected was the extent of this meddling and the degree of success that it garnered.
The Kremlin’s playbook for dummies
The Kremlin’s measures to bring Moldova back under Moscow’s control come from its old familiar playbook. The first priority is to identify a pro-Russian political figure with sufficient prospects for success worth investing in. The second is to set up a system of clandestine financing for influence operations and outright vote buying. The third is to conduct a media and cyber operation to spread fake news. The fourth and final is to organize and deploy bands of thugs to create disturbances and intimidate voters.
In the Moldovan case, those in charge of the operation exploited three specific vulnerabilities. One is the breakaway region of Transnistria in the eastern part of the country, home to a large Russian-speaking minority. The second is the presence of Gagauzia, an autonomous region in the south of Moldova with a Russian-speaking Turkic minority of Orthodox Christians. The third is the legacy of pervasive corruption that greatly facilitated influence operations and vote buying.
Risks from breakaway regions
The first of the three vulnerabilities, Transnistria, was by far the most ominous. Although Moldova has not been subjected to an outright Russian military invasion like Georgia was in 2008, its entire existence as an independent state has been marked by a tug-of-war between pro-Russian and pro-European forces. Its vulnerability to Russian influence derives from the presence of a substantial number of Russian speakers, many of whom reside in the self-proclaimed Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, also known as Transnistria.
The creation of this entity was fundamentally different from that of many others. While Moldova still was part of the Soviet Union, the Transnistrian region, a sliver of land on the eastern bank of the Dniester River, was home to the Soviet 14th Army, a large military garrison stationed there to project power into southeastern Europe. When the Soviet Union was on its last legs, the political leadership in Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria, proclaimed independence.
The government in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, tried to bring the secessionists back into the fold, but the Russian army stationed there intervened and played a critical role in preventing the installation of Moldovan control in the area. Many veterans of the former Russian 14th Army were given local residence in and around Tiraspol. Following fierce fighting, Chisinau had to yield and accept a stalemate. Although Transnistria remains an internationally recognized part of Moldova, Russia controls and bankrolls it.
After the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, some warned that the Kremlin would send its armed forces to sweep through southern Ukraine to link up with the garrison in Moldova. They attempted this with the full-scale invasion in 2022, though they failed. As Ukraine proceeded to close the land border with Transnistria and the EU refused overflight rights, Tiraspol was in a predicament. By denying Moscow access to its military garrison, estimated at perhaps 1,500 troops, it rapidly degraded.
In the runup to this year’s October 20 election, the threat of Transnistria being used as a Trojan horse came into focus when pro-Russian candidate Mr. Stoianoglo told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that if he were to win, his first trip would be to Transnistria. While that threat did seem real enough externally, it was defused by the elites in Tiraspol, who were more interested in feathering their own nests than acting as tools for Moscow.
In a pattern common for many other self-proclaimed but non-recognized statelets, there have been ample accounts of a rise in organized crime in Transnistria. Often associated with the Sheriff business conglomerate, these accounts have brought home how dependent the suspected criminals are on having access to trade in the EU, and how insistent the leadership in Tiraspol has been on maintaining minimal legal controls and restrictions on such access. In its ambition to influence the Moldovan election, Russia consequently did not make much specific use of Transnistria.
The case of Gagauzia, in contrast, proved to be low-hanging fruit. Although it had followed the pattern of many other minority-inhabited parts of the Soviet Union in responding to the breakup by proclaiming independence, in 1994 it rejoined Moldova as an autonomous region. But estrangement from the majority population would remain. Out of a Gagauz population that is currently estimated at 150,000, about 128,000 are primarily Russian speakers. With nearly 70 percent not speaking Romanian, questions over the official state language, language rights, Russian schools and Russian television remain.
Read more about Moldova and the challenges it faces
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While the government in Chisinau has sought to play a balancing act between Russia and the EU over the years, the local government in Comrat, the capital city of Gagauzia, has been doggedly pro-Russian. In 2014, when Moldova signed an association agreement with the EU, Gagauzia responded by holding a referendum with two questions to local voters: whether to join the Russian customs union, and a bill on “deferred sovereignty” that would allow Gagauzia to secede in case Moldova were to join the EU. Voters in the breakaway region overwhelmingly voted to join the customs union. Although the government in Chisinau refused to accept the referendum as legitimate, Moscow warmly welcomed it.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Moldova issued a strong condemnation, the leadership in Comrat called instead for cooperation with Russia and again threatened to secede if Moldova were to pursue a path of unification with Romania or integration into an “organization with supranational structures,” meaning the EU.
In 2023, Russia conducted a dress rehearsal for election interference, successfully electing a pro-Russian candidate as the governor of Gagauzia. Having emerged out of nowhere, the winner, Evghenia Gutul, traveled to Moscow where she met with Russian President Vladimir Putin the day after her victory. Given Russia’s penchant for using breakaway regions as levers in its foreign policy, the case of Gagauzia is ominous, though currently still a mere sideshow.
Corruption and a fugitive leading destabilization efforts
Moldova’s third and most important vulnerability is its legacy of pervasive corruption, now being ruthlessly exploited by the Russian side. The point man chosen to spearhead this operation was a former Moldovan tycoon named Ilan Shor. An alleged billionaire, he was implicated in a massive bank fraud that saw about $1 billion stolen from the Moldovan banking system. Having fled to Israel in 2019, he was sentenced in absentia and moved his base to Russia. On April 21 this year, a founding congress was held in Moscow to create Pobeda (“Victory”), a bloc of five pro-Russian parties in Moldova led by the fugitive Mr. Shor that would rally to disrupt the upcoming presidential election in Moldova.
Funding for this operation was lavish. According to Moldova’s national security adviser, Stanislav Secrieru, Russia was ready to spend around 100 million euros for election interference. Various means were used to smuggle large volumes of cash into Moldova that would be used to finance anti-government thuggery, such as vandalizing public buildings, defamation campaigns featuring deepfake videos of President Sandu and outright vote buying.
One technique was to organize group trips to Moldova where each participant was asked to carry close to 10,000 euros in cash, falling just short of the limit for mandatory declaration. At one point, following a tip, customs officers at the airport in Chisinau detained more than 100 passengers arriving from Russia via Armenia. They were found to be jointly carrying more than 900,000 euros.
In early October, Moldova’s chief of police, Viorel Chornuetsanu, said that in September alone the equivalent of $15 million had been transferred from Russia into the accounts of 130,000 Moldovan citizens. Calling it a “mafia-style” network to distribute cash, he claimed the purpose was not only to corrupt voters but also to carry out provocations with the intent to provoke protests and destabilization on the territory of Moldova.
Scenarios
Somewhat more likely: Moldovan resilience and move toward EU accession prevail
The dual votes on October 20 throughout Moldova provided the groundwork for continued movement toward European integration. Although the first round of the presidential vote was a shock, the results of the second round were decidedly pro-European. And while the referendum’s outcome on EU integration was practically tied, the massive vote buying still ultimately failed to derail Moldova’s westward trend, an egg on Russia’s face. Unsurprisingly, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov issued a statement condemning the elections as unfree and calling on President Sandu to provide evidence of her claims of Russian meddling.
If Brussels lives up to its part of the bargain, expediting serious negotiations on accession and supplying technical and political assistance to block further Russian influence operations, then Moldova still has a realistic chance of integrating into the European community. The second round of the presidential election, which gave President Sandu a clear win, further supports this scenario.
Somewhat less likely: Moscow succeeds in derailing Moldova’s EU bid
The mainstay of an alternative scenario is that in July 2025, Moldova will hold parliamentary elections. As a victory for the pro-European forces would indicate that Moldova is slipping out of the Kremlin’s grip, Moscow can be expected to fight tooth and nail to prevent this from happening.
Its active and more successful interference in the recent election in Georgia, where the government in Tbilisi subsequently froze the country’s EU candidacy, or the meteoric rise of a previously unknown pro-Russian presidential candidate in Romania, show what Moscow is capable of. By summer 2025, the Kremlin will also have additional leverage from the rise of pro-Russian political forces within the EU that will work hard to dilute Brussels’ efforts to support Moldova.
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