Moldova after the storm

Russia’s influence machine learns to wait

Photo by Sasha Pleshco on Unsplash

After Moldova’s 2025 parliamentary elections, it was tempting to say that Russia had lost. In the narrow electoral sense, this was true. Years of pressure, alleged vote-buying, online manipulation, political engineering, messaging by members of the clergy, and fearmongering had failed to bring down the country’s pro-European government. PAS kept its majority. Maia Sandu’s camp avoided the outcome that many in Chișinău, Brussels and Kyiv had feared: a Moldova still formally committed to Europe, but gradually captured from within by political forces aligned with Moscow.

However, this does not mean that Russia’s influence has disappeared entirely in Moldova. The Russian saying that “everything new is well-forgotten old” feels particularly apt here. The tools have changed, though. Artificial intelligence, bots, coordinated Telegram networks, TikTok, pseudo-news websites and cryptocurrency-based financing are now part of the landscape. However, the basic method remains the same. Moscow does not need to create divisions in Moldova. It only needs to keep them alive - emotional, unresolved, and ready to be used.

The next test is not simply whether Moldova can survive another election. It is whether it can withstand the years between the elections.

A defeat, not a collapse

The results of the 2025 elections forced Moscow to take stock. Moldova has spent the previous three years under unusually intense hybrid pressure. Russian-linked operations targeted President Maia Sandu, PAS, the country’s European course, Ukraine, minorities, the Church, the police, the justice system, and almost every other exposed fault line in Moldovan society.

By the end of this period, the influence apparatus had become far more sophisticated than it had been in 2022 or 2023. Moldova was no longer the only target. It had also become a testing ground for Russian interference, certainly, but also for the ability of a small state - backed by civil society, independent media, and international partners - to resist it.

Moldovan fact-checkers, investigative journalists, civil society organizations, and state institutions did not eliminate Russian influence. However, they changed the way Moldovans understood the information they encountered, including information generated by bots and dodgy accounts on Telegram and Facebook, which all became easier to recognize. The country’s information space remained vulnerable, but it was no longer unsuspecting.

This may help to explain the lull that followed the election. Russian FIMI operations lost momentum after the 2025 defeat. Some resources may have been sent to other locations. Certain networks went quiet, while others appeared to have entered a period of reassessment. Moscow also had to reconsider the architecture of the pro-Russian opposition after the previous model failed to deliver the desired political outcome.

The machinery was still there; it had simply become less so. Rather than trying to dominate the agenda as aggressively as it had during the campaign, it began feeding on events generated inside Moldova: local scandals, institutional failures, social fears and political mistakes. This form of influence attracts fewer headlines. It may also last longer. The emerging Russian approach increasingly relies on exploiting crises that originate within Moldova itself.

The old-new operators

One indication of what may come next appeared not in Chișinău, but in Moscow. On April 27 2026, Igor Chaika was appointed head of Rossotrudnichestvo, the federal agency officially responsible for humanitarian cooperation and relations with Russian compatriots abroad. Moldova will be only one part of his portfolio, but his appointment is nevertheless significant.

Chaika is no stranger to Moldovan politics. He has been linked to business and political networks connected to the country, including circles around former president Igor Dodon. His name has also surfaced in discussions of Russian commercial interests relevant to Moldova, from waste processing and construction to the more security-sensitive field of cryptocurrency infrastructure.

His appointment does not prove that a new operation in Moldova is already underway. What it does show is that an individual with experience in the Moldovan theatre now leads an institution long associated with Russian influence-building abroad. There is a generational shift here as well.

People such as Chaika and Ilan Shor differ from the Soviet-trained officials traditionally associated with Moscow’s influence networks. They are not ideologues in the old sense. They operate more like political entrepreneurs: financial intermediaries, dealmakers and builders of flexible networks. Their operations span offshore companies, Telegram channels, local patronage systems, hired influencers and waves of outrage designed to appear spontaneous.

The Shor influence mutates.

For years, Ilan Shor was viewed mainly through a Moldovan lens. He was a fugitive oligarch, convicted politician, sponsor of a banned party, and financier of anti-government networks–a symbol of the way corruption, populism, and Russian influence had fused in Moldovan politics. Shor appears to have moved beyond his original responsibilities. His involvement in A7, a Russian payments and cryptocurrency-related structure, points to a much broader financial network linked to Moscow’s efforts to evade sanctions and build alternative payment channels for the Russian economy.

In the past, money entered local networks and parties, and the media, buying loyalty and patronage. The current model is more based on cryptocurrency mechanisms, Russian banks, financial intermediaries, and local businesses. That is why influence operations can now be harder to trace and reveal.

Orhei and Gagauzia exemplify that Russian influence is not limited to the capital city. It is also channeled through municipal budgets and the dependence of local political clients. Where the central government fails to provide services or investment, even dubious funding can acquire political value. The projects financed with it may be of poor quality. Yet the money can still be enough to keep a loyal network alive - and to mobilize it later on behalf of a Russian-backed agenda.

Shor’s expansion into larger Russian financial structures may strengthen rather than weaken his ability to operate in Moldova, giving his network access to new instruments. Moldova may no longer be the center of his business activity, but it remains a place where relatively modest investments can bring substantial political returns.

From propaganda to processed reality

The most consequential change in Russian FIMI activity in Moldova is not technological, even though technology is clearly part of it. The more important change is methodological.

The current toolkit relies less on inventing a complete story from scratch. More often, it takes something real and works on it. A real event is selected, stripped of context, and then pushed through already existing networks. The result is often more difficult to counter than an outright fabrication. A missing teenager, a murder investigation, a case of domestic violence, a suspicious death, a police error, an environmental concern, allegations of corruption or fears over drugs and child safety can all provide raw material.

The conclusion is usually the same. The state cannot protect you. The police are corrupt. The justice system lies. PAS is covering up crimes. Officials are enriching themselves. Europe brings moral decay. The war in Ukraine is poisoning the environment. Ordinary people have been abandoned. The emotional formula is uncomplicated: fear, speed and sensationalism. Its effect, however, accumulates over time.

This helps explain why some recent cases in Moldova have received far more online attention than their immediate significance would warrant. The reported disappearance of a teenager, later clarified by the authorities, quickly became the subject of speculation about abduction, rape and murder. The story spread rapidly because it touched on several primal fears at once. By the time the authorities corrected the record, the clarification was already moving more slowly than the outrage.

This recalls earlier Russian disinformation campaigns, such as the infamous story of the “crucified boy” in Slovyansk (2014). The two cases are not the same, but the mechanism is familiar. The effectiveness of such a campaign often depends on an emotional impact that debunking alone may be unable to reverse. Once the emotions have taken hold, fact-checking becomes a technical operation carried out after much of the political damage has already occurred.

This is also why influencers increasingly matter as much as established media. Anonymous Facebook accounts, semi-anonymous Telegram channels, TikTok personalities and political entrepreneurs can create the first wave of attention. Larger online outlets then build commentary or supposed revelations around it. Eventually, even responsible journalists may feel compelled to cover the story, if only to correct it. That may be the biggest advantage of the current model: much of the amplification appears domestic, even when it ultimately serves Russian interests.

The infrastructure persists

The lower visibility of some major influence platforms since the 2025 election does not mean they disappeared. Platforms such as Storm-1516 and the Pravda ecosystem may appear dormant in regard to Moldova, but they remain available for reactivation.

The same can be said about the wider Evrazia environment, which still appears to include hundreds of accounts across TikTok, Telegram, Facebook and Instagram. The Bloknot network, CopyCop-style domains, obscure Telegram channels, Russian-language religious pages, regional outlets in Gagauzia and Transnistria, and mobile applications that redistribute restricted Russian content all form part of a broader architecture. Direct coordination from Moscow is not necessary in every case. The ecosystem is sufficiently decentralized to function even when central direction is limited or difficult to demonstrate. Two aspects stand out.

The first is information laundering. A claim may begin on an obscure Telegram channel. From there, it is picked up by a pseudo-news site, shared on Facebook, promoted by influencers, cited by politicians, and eventually discussed by mainstream media as an expression of “public concern”. By the time it reaches the mainstream media, its origins have become unclear. It no longer resembles imported Russian disinformation. It looks like a domestic controversy in Moldova.

The second is content circulation, exemplified by niche platforms such as MD24 and HaiTV. They distribute viral material in formats that fit easily into everyday content consumption. Content reaches users through channels that feel local. For younger audiences, especially those who follow politics mainly on their phones, this may matter far more than another long–form evening television program. The result is a hybrid media environment. Russia Today may be banned or restricted, but its messages, methods and fragments of content continue to circulate through other routes.

Gagauzia, Transnistria - the battle on the periphery

Gagauzia and Transnistria are very different cases, but both remain vulnerable to narratives on autonomy, minority rights, resentment towards Chișinău, and suspicion of the EU and Ukraine. Gagauzia remains fertile ground for claims that Chișinău is hostile to local interests, indifferent to economic hardship, intent on Romanianising the country, or fundamentally opposed to the Russian language and culture.

In Transnistria, the information environment has been shaped for decades by the separatist regime, Russian troops, local security structures and a media ecosystem largely detached from the rest of Moldova.

At the same time, the growth of critical channels covering Transnistrian affairs has created new problems for the local authorities. Efforts to discredit those channels, distort their reporting or attribute fabricated material to them reveal another feature of the contemporary disinformation model. It does not simply invent false sources. It can also poison the reputation of genuine ones.

This will matter as Moldova moves further along the path of European integration. Institutional reform alone will not be enough. Chișinău will also need a political language capable of reaching communities for whom the European course does not feel self-evidently safe, desirable or beneficial.

The EU path as a target

Russia’s objective is not simply to win elections. It also wants to make Moldova’s European integration politically costly, socially divisive and institutionally exhausting.

Part of this effort is simple narrative warfare. The EU is presented as anti-family, anti-Orthodox, hostile to minorities, economically destructive and determined to pull Moldova into war. At other times, it is portrayed as little more than a cover for Romania’s absorption.

Moldova’s accession process will require extensive legislation, including the alignment of national law with the EU acquis. That creates a structural vulnerability. A parliament expected to pass hundreds of legal acts can be slowed not only by weak administrative capacity, but by deliberate procedural warfare.

The pro-Russian opposition has understood the value of delay. Hearings, walkouts, procedural disputes and demands for further explanations are all legitimate tools in a democratic parliament. However, used constantly and strategically, they can become a form of filibustering. The goal does not have to be to defeat every reform. It may be enough to slow the process until frustration grows in Brussels, exhaustion sets in among officials in Chișinău, and voters begin to wonder whether European integration is delivering anything at all.

There is a more paradoxical danger as well: the possibility that pro-European or unionist language could be used against Moldova’s European course.

A referendum on unification with Romania, held at the wrong moment and under unfavorable conditions, could become a political trap in which the electorate punishes PAS by voting against unification. Support for unification remains well below a stable majority anyway. A failed vote would weaken Maia Sandu, damage and discredit PAS, and create the impression that a historic national project had been decisively rejected. It would also allow actors presenting themselves as pro-European to produce an outcome highly useful to Moscow.

This is one of the subtler challenges Moldova faces. Not every force undermining the government will openly present itself as pro-Russian. Some may instead speak about Europe, sovereignty, dignity, anti-corruption, or national reunification, while pursuing agendas that divide the pro-European electorate and slow the accession process.

The hostage tactic

Another concern is the possible use of Moldovan citizens detained in Russia, Belarus or other Russia-friendly states as bargaining chips. Moldovan officials and security experts have warned that sudden arrests abroad could create leverage for future exchanges involving convicted or detained pro-Russian actors inside Moldova. This would be an old coercive tactic adapted to a new setting.

It would not directly target the Moldovan information space, but it would quickly become part of it. Every rumor of an exchange and every allegation of espionage, mistreatment, or political persecution could feed domestic controversy. The pressure on Chișinău would be both moral and political: protect your citizens, negotiate with Moscow, release “political prisoners”, stop persecuting the opposition.

In a small country with a large diaspora and a long history of labor migration, this could have considerable emotional power. In such a case, the government could be portrayed as cold or cruel if it refuses to exchange convicted political actors for citizens held abroad.

Moldova’s problem is not only Russia.

Any serious account of Russian interference must avoid an obvious analytical trap: blaming Moscow for every problem Moldova faces. That may be politically convenient, but it does not explain very much. Moldovan institutions do have limited capacity. Police communication is not always effective. Justice reform remains slow. PAS has sometimes appeared to govern as though its geopolitical legitimacy could substitute for domestic patience. In such circumstances, people have no reason to believe the public sector is held accountable. Anti-EU narratives also find fertile ground when reform feels distant and abstract, rather than something that brings visible improvements to everyday life.

For that reason, resilience cannot be reduced to banning television channels, debunking falsehoods or arresting illegal financiers. Such measures may be necessary. They are not sufficient. Resilience also depends on competent institutions, clear communication, credible local government, visible public services and a political culture that does not treat skepticism as treason.

There is also a danger that a state confronted with genuine hybrid threats will begin to view every political conflict through a security lens. It may be tempted to restrict legitimate opposition or dismiss uncomfortable criticism as foreign interference.

The next cycle

The period between 2027 and 2029 will be decisive. Local elections, the presidential race and the next parliamentary contest will unfold alongside Moldova’s EU accession process. It will create greater interest among the population in political events.

Moscow’s influence will not be the same as during the 2025 campaign, but the threat remains. Russia will apply a new-old modus operandi in Moldova: less thunder, more corrosion. Instead of fabricating entire events, it will rely on manipulating real events and capturing the public agenda.

The last elections showed that Russian hybrid operations can be resisted, but it requires significant effort. The greater danger now may be the belief that because the most dramatic attack failed, the wider struggle over influence has been won. Russia does not need Moldovans to admire Moscow. It only needs them to distrust state institutions, doubt Europe, fear Ukraine, and conclude that nothing works.

The battlefield after the election is therefore not limited to parliament, the presidency or specialized state institutions. It lies in the everyday trust without which democratic politics cannot function.

Moldova survived the storm. The harder question is whether it can survive the steady drizzle.

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Author: Oktawian Milewski, analyst at In Between.
Cooperation: Maciej Makulski, founder at In Between