Buying voters, calling bomb threats and paying protesters to antagonize police are tactics used by the Kremlin to thwart Moldova's upcoming elections, authorities say. are.
The small former Soviet state is embroiled in a battle between pro-Russian and pro-European factions ahead of an Oct. 20 referendum on whether to vote for a new president and join the European Union.
EU membership would deepen Moldova's ties with the West and be a direct effort to keep out Russian influence.
Russia is keen to exclude Eastern European countries that were once part of the Soviet Union, such as Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, from the EU. Historically, votes to join the EU have often come before votes to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a Cold War-era alliance aimed at fighting Russia.
The vote comes amid calls for NATO and the European Union to admit war-torn Ukraine, a move seen by some as a dangerous provocation to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Maia Sandu (center), Moldova's current president and candidate for the next presidential election, holds a rally. (Reuters/Vladislav Culiomza/File)
Moldovan authorities have accused a complex ring of Russian operatives of vote buying, money laundering and illegal financing to shape the outcome of both the presidential election and the EU membership referendum.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moldova has oscillated between pro-Western and pro-Russian leaders.
And earlier this year, the United States pledged about $136 million to Moldova, a country of about 3 million people, to reduce dependence on Russian energy and counter Russian disinformation.
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National Police Chief Viorel Cernauteanu said more than 130,000 Moldovans, or 5% of the country's voters, opposed the referendum in an “unprecedented direct election” and voted in favor of pro-Russian candidates. He said he was bribed by a Russian-controlled network to finance the investment. attack. “
“We are faced with a pervasive phenomenon of financing and corruption aimed at disrupting Moldova's electoral process,” Cernauteanu told reporters.
This issue has attracted the attention of US politicians. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter Thursday to the CEOs of Meta, Alphabet, and Google to combat disinformation. He urged them to commit resources. In Moldova.
Women hold the Moldovan flag at a rally in support of Moldova's path to Europe in Chisinau, Moldova. (Reuters/Vladislav Kryomza)
He said that in September alone, about $15 million was transferred to accounts opened at Russia's Promsvyazbank.
Ilan Shor, an exiled pro-Russian oligarch, recently posted on Telegram that he would pay people to vote “no” in the referendum. Mr. Scholl was convicted last year in a scandal in which he stole $1 billion from Moldovan banks and is believed to be linked to an extensive network of Russian state actors seeking to exclude the country from the European Union.
Meanwhile, incumbent President Maia Sandu described the October 20 election campaign as a test of her pro-European politics. Sandu, who is seeking re-election for a second term, has long accused Moscow of trying to overthrow his government, an accusation Moscow denies.
In a post on his Telegram channel, Mr. Scholl said that Moldova under Sandu's government had “become a permanent police state” and that prosecutors had detained five of his supporters this week on suspicion of illegally financing political parties. I touched it.
Moldova, which has a Romanian-speaking majority and a Russian-speaking minority, has alternated between pro-Russian and pro-Western governments since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“Moldova has embarked on a journey of reform and change, which is why we aspire to join the EU,” Anton Lungu, deputy head of Moldova's mission to the United States, told FOX News Digital, adding that he supports the referendum. “Therefore, we must keep in mind the Soviet Union's legacy and interest in preserving its sphere of influence. This negative impact is expected to continue until Election Day.”
Russian agents in the country are reportedly undergoing training How to antagonize the police and encourage them to use agents like tear gas to incite unrest and violent clashes ahead of the election.
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Scholl and his network are known to pay protesters up to $100 a night to stay at protest camps. Fake bomb threats and cyberattacks against schools and government buildings are aimed at causing “controlled chaos,” said Rebecca Koffler, a former senior Defense Intelligence Agency official and author. . “President Putin's Strategy Book”. ”
Sandu is seeking re-election as a pro-Western politician.
Moldovan police announced in September that they had arrested two people who vandalized government buildings. The pair were then flown to Moscow to train them on how to provoke police during protests and other destabilizing activities, and were paid more than $5,000 each to vandalize government buildings. It turned out that he was among a group of 20 young people.
Koffler likens Russia's influence to the United States' Monroe Doctrine, an 1823 doctrine that warned European countries not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. The principle, which now applies to adversaries such as Russia and China, was symbolically invoked in 1962 when the Soviet Union began building missile launch sites in Cuba.
“Russia has relied for centuries on a strategic buffer zone, or strategic security perimeter, of which the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Moldova are part,” she said.
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“The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 narrowed its strategic security borders, especially the distance between NATO and Moscow and St. Petersburg,” Koffler said, referring to Russia's capital and second most important city. Ta. St. Petersburg is only about 160 miles from the border of NATO member Finland.
Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership immediately after the outbreak of the Ukraine war, and were incorporated into the alliance in 2023.
Some observers believe that the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders and the growing influence of the United States in Eastern European countries threatened Putin and prompted him to invade Ukraine in 2022. Others believe that Putin has long harbored territorial ambitions to restore the Soviet Union and could not be deterred from doing so. It's invading.
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Russia is known for espousing the Gerasimov Doctrine, popularized by Russian official Valery Gerasimov, which advocates creating chaos by covertly hacking into enemy societies rather than attacking directly with force. I am doing it.
Russia-related interference in Moldova would fit into this form of shadow puppetry to control outcomes.
“The very 'rules of war' have changed. The role of non-military means in achieving political and strategic goals has increased, and in many cases their effectiveness exceeds the power of armed force… All this implies a hidden personality that is complemented by the military,” Gerasimov wrote in the Russian trade publication Military-Industrial Kurie.
Reuters contributed to this report.
