In the days leading up to Moldova’s pivotal parliamentary election on Sunday, September 28, 2025, the small Eastern European nation finds itself at the epicenter of a high-stakes geopolitical tug-of-war. At the heart of the contest is a fierce battle between pro-European aspirations and persistent Russian influence, with the outcome poised to determine Moldova’s future alignment—toward the European Union or back into Moscow’s orbit. But this year, the contest is being waged not only at the ballot box, but also across an unprecedented digital front: a tidal wave of artificial intelligence-driven disinformation, propaganda, and covert funding operations, all allegedly orchestrated or inspired by the Kremlin.
According to multiple online monitoring groups and reporting by The Associated Press, the run-up to the election has been marred by a deluge of AI-powered disinformation campaigns. These efforts, attributed to Russian actors, have sought to undermine support for the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS)—the country’s main pro-European party founded by President Maia Sandu—and to sway Moldovan voters away from the European path. Spoof websites have popped up, impersonating legitimate Western news outlets, while AI bots flood comment sections with anti-PAS and anti-EU rhetoric. The scale and sophistication of these operations have alarmed both local authorities and international observers.
President Maia Sandu, who has emerged as a central figure in Moldova’s pro-Western movement, has not minced words about the gravity of the moment. Calling Sunday’s vote “the most consequential” in the nation’s history, Sandu warned that the election would decide whether Moldova “becomes a stable democracy or whether Russia pulls the country away from Europe.” She stressed, “If Russia comes to control Moldova, the consequences will be direct and dangerous for our country and for the entire region. All Moldovans will suffer, no matter who they voted for. Europe will end at the border with Moldova. European funds will stop at the Prut. Freedom of movement could end. Our land could become an infiltration ramp towards the Odessa region. The Transnistrian region would be destabilized. These are their plans and they say them openly.”
Security concerns are not merely theoretical. On Monday, September 22, Moldovan police conducted 250 raids and arrested 74 people as part of an investigation into an alleged Russia-backed plot to incite mass riots and destabilize the country just days before the vote. Authorities described the unrest plot as “coordinated from the Russian Federation, through criminal elements,” and revealed that suspects, aged between 19 and 45, had traveled to Serbia for training. The following day, Moldova’s National Anticorruption Center and Balti prosecutors carried out over 30 additional raids, detaining one person on suspicion of financing a political party linked to Russia through cryptocurrencies. Investigators seized 800,000 Moldovan lei (about $50,000) in cash, accounting documents, and electronic storage devices, and identified cash deliveries totaling 9,000,000 lei (about $540,000) made via cryptocurrencies. The money, authorities allege, was layered through illegal crypto exchanges and distributed by couriers—an operation they believe was orchestrated from Russia.
“People are intoxicated daily with lies,” Sandu said in a televised address. “Hundreds of individuals are paid to provoke disorder, violence, and spread fear. … I appeal to all citizens: We must not allow our country to be handed over to foreign interests.”
The digital front of this hybrid campaign has become increasingly sophisticated. Reset Tech, a global nonprofit that monitors digital threats to democracy, investigated an English-language AI-generated platform called Restmedia. According to a 36-page report shared with The Associated Press, Restmedia publishes “Kremlin-aligned propaganda” attacking Sandu, PAS, and the EU, with about a quarter of its content focused on Moldova. The site pays “engagement farms” in Africa to amplify narratives across X (formerly Twitter), using verified accounts in “amplification-for-hire” schemes. Despite attempts to mask its origins, researchers uncovered technical links to Russia through IP addresses and website metadata. “We have learned to detect the fingerprints of these Russian secret services in lots of different countries ... and seen them really active in Moldova,” said Ben Scott, director of Reset Tech. “If a couple of researchers at an NGO like ours can find a big Russian information operation targeting Moldova, why is it that big companies … can’t do it?”
Tech giants have responded, albeit with mixed results. Google stated that it had proactively terminated more than 1,000 YouTube channels since June 2024 for being part of coordinated influence operations targeting Moldova. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said it was in close contact with Moldovan authorities and had dedicated teams monitoring potential threats. Between August 5 and September 4, the Romanian think tank Expert Forum tracked 100 inauthentic TikTok accounts, which together garnered a staggering 13.9 million views—most of them attacking PAS. Promo-Lex, a Moldovan nonprofit, found 500 fake TikTok accounts posting anti-EU and anti-Sandu content, generating 1.3 million views in just three days by manipulating TikTok’s algorithm through two election-related hashtags.
The disinformation is not limited to attacks on policy. Fabricated stories on fake news sites have targeted Sandu personally, including one that falsely accused her of purchasing sperm from gay celebrities to have a child—a claim designed to weaponize gender stereotypes and erode her political reputation. Another article, citing a Kremlin-aligned organization sanctioned by the EU, accused Sandu of running a child trafficking campaign through Ukraine. “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.”
Reset Tech linked these operations to a broader Russian influence network known as Storm-1516, building on research by Recorded Future’s Insikt Group and the Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Information Sharing and Analysis Center. The network’s methods include not just digital disinformation, but also illicit funding. Ilan Shor, a pro-Russian Moldovan oligarch convicted of fraud and reportedly exiled in Moscow, is accused of funding a network of paid political ads on Facebook and YouTube with a budget of approximately 45,000 euros between April 30 and July 28, 2025. WatchDog, a Chisinau-based think tank, reported that these ads promoted narratives that PAS would rig the election, persecute the Orthodox Church, and impoverish Moldova.
In response, Moldovan authorities have not stood idle. On September 16, Sandu signed a decree establishing a center to counter disinformation. Raids have targeted suspected money laundering, voter corruption, and illegal party financing, with evidence reportedly showing suspects received instructions from Russian operatives via Telegram on how to distribute and comment on disinformation videos across social media platforms.
Russia, for its part, has repeatedly denied meddling in Moldova’s affairs. Its Foreign Intelligence Service accused European politicians of attempting to ensure Moldova adhered to “Russophobic policies” and even alleged European attempts to falsify votes—claims that Moldovan officials dismiss as deflection and disinformation.
As Moldovans prepare to cast their ballots, the stakes could hardly be higher. The election is widely seen as a referendum on the country’s future: whether it will continue its westward shift—sparked in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, EU candidate status, and ongoing accession negotiations—or be pulled back into Russia’s sphere of influence. “We know how to fight Russian propaganda (and) pro-Russian oligarchs,” said Andrei Rusu, a media monitoring expert at WatchDog. “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.”
In a nation where the battle for the future is being fought not just in parliament but across the digital landscape, Moldovans must now decide which path they trust—and whose voices they believe.