Russia paying people to vote against joining EU, Moldova warns

A pro-Russian oligarch is at the center of a web of cash and influence designed to help the Kremlin pay ordinary Moldovans to vote against closer ties with the West during nationwide elections later this month, according to authorities in the Eastern European nation.

“Moldova is facing a phenomenon of voter bribery, combined with hybrid warfare and disinformation, the likes of which our country has never seen before,” Moldova’s chief of police, Viorel Cernăuțeanu, told POLITICO on Thursday.

Moldovan detectives report that more than $15 million in Russian funds has been funneled into the bank accounts of more than 130,000 Moldovan citizens in the past month alone. They are holding a press conference Thursday to sound the alarm over the plot.

“This ‘mafia-style’ network, orchestrated from Moscow, aims to influence voters ahead of the presidential elections and EU referendum,” said Cernăuțeanu.

According to the investigators, Ilan Shor, the founder of a now-banned pro-Russian political party, helped launder the funds intended to be used to bribe voters through a network of banks. Officials say coordinators in Russia then directed officials and local activists to act on their behalf, while dispensing cash through messaging platform Telegram.

Shor’s allies, and the Kremlin, are campaigning for the public to cast their ballots against joining the EU in a referendum on Oct. 20, as well as against pro-Western President Maia Sandu in a simultaneous election.

The Shor Party, founded by the Moldovan-Israeli tycoon, was declared unconstitutional and banned last year, but officials say he maintains close links with other pro-Russian opposition groups.

The revelations come just days after Moldova’s national security adviser, Stanislav Secrieru, told POLITICO that Russia has begun an “unprecedented onslaught” of propaganda and intimidation in the run-up to the Oct. 20 vote. “Russia will spend around €100 million on interference into Moldovan democratic processes this year,” he predicted.

Moldova was granted candidate status by the EU in June 2022 and accession talks began with the bloc this summer, even as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine rages just across the border. However, Moscow has sought to use its control over the country’s energy supplies and its penetration of state institutions to exert control over its former Soviet republic.

The EU has deployed a civilian mission to the candidate country to help build resilience against hybrid threats from Russia. Last summer, Ukrainian intelligence warned it had intercepted a plot to violently overthrow Sandu’s government, funded by Moscow. Shor was named as the linchpin of the alleged coup, and has since been sanctioned by Brussels.

A senior Moldovan official, granted anonymity to speak frankly about the sensitive security issue, said that closer cooperation with Brussels was key to ensuring Moscow’s plan doesn’t work: “We are learning important lessons as we defend our democracy in this electoral cycle — lessons the EU can also benefit from as they will likely face similar, but more refined, tactics in the future.”