With Moldova’s parliamentary elections set for Sunday, September 28, 2025, the small Eastern European nation finds itself at the epicenter of a sophisticated disinformation war—one that experts say is powered by artificial intelligence and orchestrated from Moscow. As Moldovans prepare to cast their ballots in what President Maia Sandu has called the "most consequential" vote in the country’s history, the stakes have never been higher: the outcome could determine whether Moldova continues its march toward European Union membership or is drawn back into Russia’s sphere of influence.
According to Bloomberg, documents reviewed earlier this month reveal that the Kremlin finalized a multi-pronged strategy in spring 2025 to intervene in Moldova’s elections. The plan, coordinated at the highest levels in Moscow, aims not only to undermine Sandu’s pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) but also to ultimately see her removed from power. The Kremlin’s objective, as outlined in these documents, is clear: disrupt Moldova’s efforts to integrate with the West and maintain Russian influence in the region.
Researchers from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and digital watchdogs like Reset Tech and Expert Forum have tracked a deluge of propaganda and disinformation campaigns attributed to Russia in the weeks leading up to the vote. These campaigns, they say, represent a new phase in influence operations—one marked by a heavy reliance on AI-driven content, spoofed websites mimicking reputable Western media, and engagement farms paid to amplify Kremlin-aligned narratives across social media platforms.
Reset Tech, a global nonprofit monitoring digital threats to democracy, investigated an English-language AI-generated platform called Restmedia. Purporting to "expose and address the critical issues shaping Europe’s future," Restmedia’s content is, in reality, generated entirely by AI tools and focuses heavily on Moldova. About a quarter of its output is translated and amplified in other EU languages, pushing anti-Sandu, anti-PAS, and anti-EU propaganda. "We have learned to detect the fingerprints of these Russian secret services in lots of different countries ... and seen them really active in Moldova," Ben Scott, director of Reset Tech, told the Associated Press. "And not surprising, because Moldova has some very critical elections."
The sophistication of these operations, however, lies not in their technical prowess but in their scale and reach. Restmedia, for instance, pays "engagement farms" in Africa to promote its narratives on verified accounts on X (formerly Twitter), and uses AI bots to flood comment sections with attacks on PAS and the EU. "I’m not at all shocked by the sophistication because it isn’t sophisticated. What’s remarkable about it is how large it is," Scott added. The network’s infrastructure, while masked, has clear technical links to Russia through IP addresses and website metadata.
Tech giants have taken notice. Google reported that, as part of its proactive coverage for the 2025 Moldova elections, it terminated more than 1,000 YouTube channels since June 2024 for being part of coordinated influence operations targeting the country. The scale is staggering: between August 5 and September 4, 2025, the Romanian think tank Expert Forum tracked 100 inauthentic TikTok accounts that amassed 13.9 million views, spreading fear and resentment—mostly targeting PAS. Promo-Lex, a Moldovan nonprofit, identified another 500 fake TikTok accounts posting anti-EU and anti-Sandu content, racking up 1.3 million views in just three days. These networks, driven by a handful of core accounts, manipulate TikTok’s algorithm to force posts into trending, using election-related hashtags as bait.
But the campaign doesn’t stop at social media. Fake news sites, some mimicking well-known Western outlets, have published fabricated stories aimed at discrediting Sandu personally and politically. One such site, impersonating the U.S. lifestyle magazine OK! Magazine, ran a false story alleging that Sandu was involved in a "celebrity sperm scandal"—a baseless attack weaponizing gender stereotypes. Another site cited a report by a Russian foundation sanctioned by the EU to accuse Sandu of running a child trafficking ring. "The Kremlin operatives are using AI, cheap, off-the-shelf software to create quick and dirty images for lookalike websites," Scott explained. "Not only does it bring false information to voters who are trying to consider very consequential issues in their country, but also over time it leads people to believe that nothing can be trusted."
Behind these digital smokescreens are real actors with real money. Fugitive pro-Russian Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, reportedly living in exile in Moscow, has been accused of funding a sprawling network of paid political ads on Facebook and YouTube. Between April 30 and July 28, 2025, Shor’s network and other political actors spent an estimated 45,000 euros ($53,000) on 1,505 advertisements, according to the Chisinau-based think tank WatchDog. Hundreds more adverts were placed on YouTube. The main narratives? That PAS plans to rig the election, persecutes the Orthodox Church, and has impoverished Moldova.
Law enforcement has responded with a wave of raids and arrests. On Monday, September 22, 2025, Moldovan police arrested 74 people in 250 raids as part of an investigation into a Russia-backed plan to incite mass riots and destabilize the country. Earlier, on September 18, authorities seized cash, laptops, and bank documents, and reported that suspects were receiving instructions via Telegram from "curators in the Russian Federation" on how to distribute and comment on disinformation videos across Facebook, TikTok, and Telegram. In total, about $302,000 was seized in operations targeting Russian-backed money laundering schemes, and a media outlet linked to Shor was shut down. Shor has denied any wrongdoing.
The Kremlin’s playbook, as revealed by leaked documents and confirmed by European officials, is to mobilize diaspora voters, stage street protests, and launch coordinated disinformation campaigns across TikTok, Telegram, and Facebook. These efforts are part of Russia’s larger Doppelganger campaign, which clones legitimate websites to spread propaganda and overwhelm fact-checkers with fabricated content. According to the ISW, Russia is learning from its interference in the 2024 Romanian presidential election, particularly in the extensive use of TikTok to sway public opinion.
President Sandu, who won reelection in November 2024 despite Russian interference attempts, has made Moldova’s EU bid a central pillar of her platform. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moldova has applied for and received EU candidate status, with accession negotiations opening in 2024. Yet, with PAS now at risk of losing its majority—and several Russia-friendly parties vying for power—the outcome of Sunday’s vote could set the country’s course for years to come. "Joining the EU will protect Moldova from the greatest threat we face: Russia," Sandu has warned.
In an effort to stem the tide of disinformation, Sandu signed a decree on September 16, 2025, establishing a new center to counter fake news and propaganda. But as Andrei Rusu, a media monitoring expert at WatchDog, put it: "We know how to fight Russian propaganda (and) pro-Russian oligarchs. But we need more support from our partners. … Words will not save our country from a pro-Russian regime if this election will be corrupted."
With the world watching and the future of Moldova hanging in the balance, voters will head to the polls amid an unprecedented information onslaught—one that could shape not just the country’s next parliament, but its very identity and place in Europe.
