CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Moldovan historian and politician Octavian Ticu recalls the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, a seismic event that allowed him to become one of the first amateur boxers to fight for his country at the height of his sport: the Olympic Games.
“It was a happy moment for me,” the 52-year-old recalled as he clenched his fists at a boxing gym in the capital Chisinau. “In 1996 I took part in the Olympic Games in Atlanta. … If I had been in the Soviet Union, I would never have achieved this.”
But today, more than 30 years after declaring independence, Moldova is being targeted by Russia in a hybrid war of propaganda and disinformation that is “wreaking havoc,” Ticu, who competed in the lightweight division, told The Associated Press.
Like Ukraine and Georgia, the former Soviet republic is aspiring to join the European Union but is caught in an ongoing geopolitical battle between Moscow and the West.
“Russian propaganda is a reality of thirty years of independence,” added Ticu, who has written several books on his country’s history.
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This story, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, is part of an ongoing Associated Press series on threats to democracy in Europe.
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In a national referendum on October 20, Moldovans voted by a razor-thin majority of 50.35% in favor of securing a path to EU membership. But the result was overshadowed by accusations of a Moscow-backed vote-buying scheme.
In the presidential elections on the same day, incumbent pro-Western president Maia Sandu won 42% of the vote but failed to win an outright majority. On Sunday she will face Alexandr Stoianoglo, a Russia-friendly former attorney general, in a runoff seen as a choice between geopolitical divisions.
As with the EU referendum, a poll published this week by research firm iData points to a tight race Sunday that leans toward a narrow Sandu victory, an outcome that could depend on Moldova’s large diaspora.
The presidential role carries with it significant powers in areas such as foreign policy and national security.
In the aftermath of the two October votes, Moldovan law enforcement said a vote-buying scheme was orchestrated by Ilan Shor, an exiled oligarch currently living in Russia and convicted in absentia in 2023 of fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors say $39 million in voter payments was made to more than 130,000 recipients between September and October through an internationally sanctioned Russian bank. Shor denies any wrongdoing.
“These people who go to Moscow, the so-called government in exile of Ilan Shor, who come with very large sums of money, are allowed to walk around freely,” said Ticu, who ran for election. presidential race.
It was “clear”, Ticu added, that the votes would be “not fair or democratic”. Of the eleven candidates for the first round, he was the only one who supported Sandu in the second round.
Voters from the Kremlin-friendly breakaway region of Transnistria, which declared independence in the early 1990s after a brief war, can cast their votes in Moldova proper. Transnistria has been a source of tension during the war in neighboring Ukraine, especially because it is home to a military base with 1,500 Russian troops.
Ticu warned that if Russian troops in Ukraine reach the port city of Odesa, they “could join the Transnistrian region, and then the Republic of Moldova will be occupied.”
In Gagauzia, an autonomous part of Moldova where only 5% voted in favor of the EU, a doctor was arrested after allegedly forcing 25 residents of a retirement home to vote for a candidate they had not chosen. Police said they had obtained “conclusive evidence,” including financial transfers from the same Russian bank subject to sanctions.
Anti-corruption authorities have carried out hundreds of raids and seized more than $2.7 million (2.5 million euros) in cash in their bid to crack down.
On Thursday, prosecutors raided the headquarters of a political party and said 12 people were suspected of paying voters to select a candidate for the presidential election. A criminal case was also opened in which 40 employees of government agencies were suspected of accepting election bribes.
Rather than gaining the overwhelming support Sandu had hoped for, the results of both races revealed the Moldovan judiciary’s inability to adequately protect the democratic process. It also caused a pro-Moscow opposition to question the validity of the votes.
Igor Dodon, leader of the Party of Socialists and a former president with close ties to Russia, declared this week that “we do not recognize the referendum result” and labeled Sandu “a dictator in a skirt” who “will do anything is necessary”. remain in power.”
Sandu admitted that the ballots suffered from unprecedented fraud and foreign interference, which undermined the results. He called the interference a “despicable attack” on Moldova’s sovereignty.
“If the judiciary does not wake up… if it turns a blind eye to selling the country, Moldova’s future will be in jeopardy for decades,” she warned.
Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe and has been hit hard by inflation since the start of the war. Tatiana Cojocari, an expert on Russia’s foreign policy at Chisinau-based think tank WatchDog, says this means many citizens could “fall prey to electoral corruption” for relatively small amounts of money.
“It is very important for Russia to have as many resources as possible to work with. It creates chaos, both informationally and politically,” Cojocari said, adding that Russia has “gone a bit to Cold War tactics and uses them skillfully, but only now adapted to social media.”
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moldova applied to join the EU. In June of that year it was granted candidate country status, and in the summer of 2024 Brussels agreed to start membership negotiations. The sharp shift westward irritated Moscow and significantly soured relations with Chisinau.
Since then, Moldovan authorities have repeatedly accused Russia of waging a massive “hybrid war,” from extensive disinformation campaigns to protests by pro-Russian parties and vote-buying schemes that are undermining elections across the country. Russia has denied interfering.
Social media platforms have played a crucial role in spreading Russian propaganda in Moldova, says Andrei Rusu, media monitoring expert at WatchDog. “One of the biggest lies is that if Moldovans join the EU, they will go to war with Russia, lose their faith and traditional values, or be forced to follow LGBT propaganda,” he said.
Moldovans who lived through the Soviet Union, he added, may have difficulty recognizing Russian propaganda about the EU and the West, and distinguishing between real videos and videos generated by artificial intelligence, such as those that have often appeared online with images of Sandu.
In recent weeks, Meta and Telegram have removed several fake accounts that railed against the EU and Sandu, and expressed support for pro-Russian parties.
However, Moldovan observers warn that Moscow’s main target could be the 2025 parliamentary elections. Declining support for the ruling pro-Western Action and Solidarity Party suggests it could lose its majority in parliament with 101 seats.
“We are already waiting for the parliamentary elections to see other tactics and strategies,” added Cojocari, the Russian analyst. “This government will no longer be able to secure … a parliamentary majority.”
Back in the boxing gym, Ticu warned that more must be done to counter foreign interference or face a “danger of hybrid governance” with pro-Russian forces.
“Very good laws have been passed, but they are not being implemented,” he said. Russian President Vladimir “Putin does not want war in Moldova, he wants to show the world and Europe an example where European integration policy has failed.”
