From behind her podium, president Maia Sandu looked visibly relieved. Addressing the nation from the presidential palace in Chișinău for the first time since the authoritative results were announced, she declared: “Yesterday’s vote represents a strong mandate for the Republic of Moldova’s EU accession process.” Her party, the PAS, secured 55 of the 101 parliamentary seats.
Her speech rapidly became solemn as she reflected on the electoral process: “The Kremlin tried to divide us and undermine your trust in the state and its institutions,” she warned.
Russia’s “operation Matryoshka”
During these parliamentary elections, Moldova – a country of 2.4 million people, wedged between Ukraine and Romania – faced unprecedented vulnerability to “Operation Matryoshka,” Moscow’s continent-wide hybrid influence campaign. Since 2022, this operation has sought to sway public opinion and destabilize democracies across Europe, with a peculiar focus on undermining Moldova’s pro-European forces, including president Maia Sandu’s party.
Moldova’s youth feel the impact daily. Mirula R., a 19-year-old university student, opens TikTok only to find her feed flooded with videos denouncing “the poison of the European Union” and the dangers of joining the EU. 1 video, she says with a laugh, even accuses Sandu of secretly owning luxury properties worth millions.
Mirula can no longer open her social media without coming across pro-Russian videos. Photo: Théodore Donguy
While Mirula brushed off these narratives, many Moldovans inactive share and believe them. On Chișinău’s trolleybuses, passengers scroll through endless clips accusing Sandu’s organization of promoting the “LGBT virus” – a threat they claim would spread if Moldova joined the EU.
According to Antibot4Navalny, an online collective investigating Moscow’s operations in Europe, these influencers are recruited via Telegram and financed in part by funds linked to sanctioned Russian banks. Weeks before the vote, Sandu herself was targeted by a mocking deepfake video, created utilizing Luma AI, which portrayed her rapping in Russian as an ineffective leader.
This network of disinformation is vast: tens of thousands of TikTok accounts generating over 23 million views and 860,000 likes since January, in a country of barely 2 million inhabitants.
According to Andrei Curararu, a public policy expert, Moldova faced “the largest abroad electoral interference operation always recorded”, He estimates that Moscow spent around 300 million euros – equivalent to about 2 per cent of Moldova’s GDP – in an effort to influence the vote. These funds financed dozens of electoral competitors and flooded social media with hundreds of thousands of manipulative pages and posts.
Moldova’s digital counteroffensive
Throughout the campaign, the Chișinău-based think tank WatchDog.Md worked tirelessly to counter Russia’s hybrid threats. From a modest Soviet-era house, its president, Valeriu Pașa, explained: “The strength of Russian interference and disinformation is highly high.”
WatchDog itself came under attack, becoming a mark of smear campaigns and cyberattacks. Pașa compared Operation Matryoshka’s output to “five times the amount of content targeting Moldova’s elections than was seen during the last 2 US elections.”
The Moldovan government besides confronted these challenges head-on. Prime Minister Dorin Recean reported that state systems had been targeted by more than 1,000 cyberattacks since the beginning of the year, and that authorities had removed 100,000 fake TikTok accounts spreading disinformation. Officials noted that this information war extended across multiple platforms.
Election day attacks
On election day, the most crucial threats did not come from social media but from a coordinated wave of direct cyberattacks and physical disruptions. According to a government origin who spoke to New east Europe, targets included the Central Election Commission’s website, government cloud systems, process automation tools, and even any overseas polling stations.
Authorities reported sustained distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, launched from servers in multiple countries, which generated over 16 million artificial connections in an effort to overwhelm systems tracking live turnout results. These cyberattacks were designed to cripple the digital infrastructure supporting the election, delaying the publication of preliminary results and sowing confusion among voters.
But the disruption extended beyond cyberspace. respective overseas polling stations—including those in Brussels, Bucharest, Rome, Genoa, Alicante, and Asheville (US)—received false bomb threats, forcing evacuations and temporary closures. Though all alerts proved to be hoaxes, the operation disrupted voting, diverted safety resources, and sowed uncertainty among Moldovan voters abroad.
Meanwhile, Moldova’s 2,274 polling stations—both home and abroad—became hotspots for micro-level interference, including vote buying, voter intimidation, and manipulation of electoral rolls. In any cases, observers reported groups of individuals attempting to influence voters close polling stations, while isolated incidents of ballot stuffing were rapidly flagged by monitors and addressed by election officials.
All voters are filmed while casting their ballot into the box. Photo: Théodore Donguy
Watchful eyes: the function of observers
To mitigate these risks, the central election commission worked closely with a robust network of global observers – including a 415-strong delegation from the OSCE – as well as local NGOs specified as Promo-LEX and the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections. Their comprehensive monitoring ensured strict compliance with legal procedures, transparency in the ballot, and fast consequence to any irregularities reported across Moldova.
A cornerstone of this surveillance effort was the installation of high-resolution cameras above all ballot box, broadcasting live feeds to a centralized monitoring hub. These cameras, operational throughout polling hours, not only deterred possible fraud but besides provided real-time verification for observers and election officials.
In addition, the election commission deployed a digital platform allowing citizens to study violations via a mobile app, further enhancing accountability. Among the OSCE’s global observers was Swedish parliamentarian Linnéa Wickman, a seasoned election monitor with prior experience in Georgia.
Stationed at a polling station in Chișinău’s Academy of economical Studies, Wickman highlighted the importance of impartial oversight: “Our mission is to guarantee that all phase of this election is free, fair, and inclusive. Citizens deserve transparency, and their right to vote freely must be protected without exception.” Her remarks echoed the broader OSCE assessment, which later praised Moldova’s efforts to counter external interference while maintaining electoral integrity.
From 8 am to 7 pm, the observers, like Linnéa Wickman, were dispatched in pairs across the country. Photo: Théodore Donguy
Transnistria: a delicate front
While polling stations in central Chișinău remained orderly, those close the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria posed greater concerns. Around 370,000 residents of this Russian-speaking enclave, where 1,500 to 2,000 Russian soldiers are stationed, hold Moldovan passports but are seen as powerfully pro-Moscow.
To minimize the hazard of fraud, authorities placed polling stations on the Moldovan-controlled side of the Dniester River. As a result, Transnistrians were forced to travel long distances and cross the river in order to vote.
Opposition leader and erstwhile president Igor Dodon denounced what he described as “voter harassment”. His party, the pro-Moscow Patriotic Bloc, is allegedly financed straight by Russia. According to a US intelligence report, Moscow has funnelled at least 300 million US dollars to abroad political actors in any 20 countries since 2014.
The day after the vote, Dodon addressed respective 100 supporters gathered outside Moldova’s parliament in Chișinău, where he announced he had filed dozens of formal complaints with the electoral commission, alleging widespread irregularities. The crowd, mostly composed of older Moldovans, passionately denounced the election’s organization, echoing Dodon’s rhetoric with chants of “Europe, thieves!” – a slogan he had repeatedly utilized during the run to discredit the pro-European government.
Many in the crowd fervently chanted Vladimir Putin’s name, expressing their unwavering belief that Moldova’s future lies within Moscow’s sphere of influence. Their slogans and speeches reflected a deep-seated nostalgia for closer ties with Russia, as well as scepticism towards the European Union and president Maia Sandu’s improvement agenda.
For a year now, a European flag has been displayed on the building of the Moldovan government. Photo: Théodore Donguy
A way forward
Despite the scale of Russian disinformation, cyberattacks, and micro-level interference attempts, the election day proceeded without major incidents altering the outcome. Moldova remains firmly on its way toward European integration, with president Maia Sandu’s government aiming for EU membership by 2028.
This ambitious goal, backed by a pro-European majority, marks a decisive turn toward Brussels—despite Moscow’s relentless efforts to pull the country back into its orbit. The road ahead is steep, but the mandate is clear.
Théodore Donguy is an independent writer based in Paris. He covers human rights and war in east Europe. He has been published in European outlets including VoxEurop, Paris Match, Hampshire Chronicle and France 24.
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