Stark Warning About Kremlin Election Interference
Weekly Roundup: As President Sandu calls out Kremlin proxies, pro-Russian opposition parties organize for the elections
President Sandu Warns of “Unprecedented Intervention” in the Elections
On July 30th President Sandu chaired a meeting of the Supreme Security Council (SSC) and afterwards gave a press conference where she stated:
"Russia is seeking to establish control over Moldova this fall and is preparing an unprecedented intervention in the parliamentary elections scheduled for September. The Kremlin is investing resources in creating several political projects to get its representatives into the next parliament,"
The President stated that the Kremlin is preparing 3 separate captive factions in the elections. Namely:
The Sovereignists, who she stated “have nothing to do with the sovereignty of our country."
Shor and his parties. She noted that this faction will organize aggressive protests, vandalize government buildings and conduct widespread voter bribery efforts.
False Pro-EU Parties.
Speaking of these efforts the President Stated that:
“All these projects are coordinated from one center and are largely financed by criminal schemes associated with Shor,”
The President also noted that some independent candidates could be controlled from this “center” as well. In terms of mechanism, she mentioned multiple primary tools of interference including voter bribery, foreign information manipulation campaigns, cyberattacks, paid protests, co-opting of elements of the Church, cooperation with organized crime and attempts to sabotage diaspora voting. Regarding voter bribery the President stated that these forces plan to transfer €100 million euros via cryptocurrency alone.
She ended with a call to action stating:
"Dear citizens, a complicated period awaits us. We will be subject to well-planned external interference, with immense financial resources and criminal groups involved. This should not scare us, but mobilize us. We must be vigilant. Our institutions have an important duty and they know what they have to do. But citizens also have a great responsibility. The future of the Republic of Moldova depends on each of us, on the information we consume, the actions we take, what we believe and how we make decisions, on all of this. And all of us, those who are connected to Moldova and love Moldova, want a European future for Moldova, in peace and well-being here at home."
PAS vs the World?
President Sandu’s implication here is quite clear - Ilan Shor’s parties, The Socialists and their allies, and Mayor Ceban’s Alternative Bloc are all centrally controlled Kremlin projects. This was not lost on them either with Igor Dodon calling this the implementation of "thoughtcrime" and stating:
"If you are a Eurosceptic, if you criticize the regime or simply have a different opinion than Maia Sandu, you are called a 'hybrid', 'criminal', 'foreign agent', 'enemy', 'threat to society'... The government's paranoia has reached a clinical stage. We are facing an election campaign full of abuses, intimidation, political reprisals - and all this with the tacit approval of the European bureaucrats from Brussels,"
Mayor Ceban stated that the implication here is that “Whoever is not for us [PAS] is against the country. Which is not true.”
Author’s Note: Without offering my own opinion (at this time) about how accurate this framing is, I want to note how clearly it structures the rest of this roundup. In the past I’ve separated Political news, election news, Shor / Hybrid warfare, justice and corruption reform, etc into categories. I’ll keep some of these structures as best I can, but you’ll see below how these groupings begin to bleed together - with election updates, Shor, MEGA and other news all being of a piece with the same characters. The election season is now truly beginning and hybrid actions, as well as disinformation are set to massively increase. We’ll do our best to filter out the main stories and bring them to you as objectively as possible.
This takes a lot of work though so if you can…
The “Patriotic Bloc of the Socialists, Heart, and Future of Moldova”
On July 29th the Socialists, Heart of Moldova, and Future of Moldova parties officially registered with the Central Election Commission (CEC) to participate in the parliamentary elections as a bloc. Following his less-than-enthusiastic comments from last week, Communist Leader Vladimir Voronin did not join them. A Communist party representative clarified saying that the party was still making an official decision, but would likely join the bloc a bit later.
Author’s Note: For simplicity’s sake, we will shorthand the bloc as the “Patriotic Bloc” going forward. We’ll also sometimes refer to this grouping as the “sovereigntists” which is one of the primary ways they describe themselves.
The leaders of the 3 “Patriotic Bloc” parties traveled to Moscow in early July and announced the creation of a bloc shortly after their return to Chisinau (July 22). They then held a joint rally on July 26th and registered the party on July 29th1.
A “Patriotic” Rally
On July 26th the “Patriotic” electoral bloc held a “patriotic” rally in central Chisinau. Approximately 10,000 people gathered for the march and rally on one of the hottest days of the year so far. Speaking to the crowd Irina Vlah, leader of Heart of Moldova said "The people told us to unite to drive the yellow scum out of power" (the PAS party color is yellow). Socialist Bogdan Țîrdea yelled "Soros is with them, and God is with us.2"
Police allege that some of the protesters were paid to attend. They released video showing a man passing out money at the end of the rally, and called attention to a case involving 2 girls, aged 14 and 17, who were promised money by a man over the phone if they came to protest.
Following the protest police have identified multiple groups that were paid 300 lei, including 13 people who were paid “at a party headquarters” in Orhei following the event.
The Socialist Party denied involvement saying:
"we have no connection with the people who, according to some information, would have distributed money"
They went on to call the whole thing a “provocation” (aka that it was staged).
Speaker of Parliament, and PAS Party leader, Igor Grosu said of the allegations:
"Dodon has been struggling for a long time to serve Shor in order to please Putin. Now he has found the intermediary carrier – Vlah who ensures their contact. Vlah serves as a purse for transmitting money and instructions from Shor to Dodon. I want to draw the attention of all citizens, including those who have ever believed in the intentions of the socialists – it is important to understand that Dodon and Shor are the same gang now united by the support of Vlah. They do not work for you, they all work for Shor."
Is Shor Connected to the Patriot Bloc?
ZdG reported that following the “Patriotic” rally their journalists identified a known Shor network activist, Ludmila Gortolomei, in photos of the event. They contacted her without identifying themselves as journalists - simply asking how the event went and whether its organization was satisfactory. She responded, apparently assuming this was her superior in Shor’s network, and gave a full report of the event. Asked how the collaboration between the Socialists and Pobeda (Victory) is going she said:
“When they need me, they call me, I go there too. But when they need me here, I help them too. Anyway, they have the same opinions. With the same opinion as the socialists, that's how Pobeda is”
Ludmila Gortolomei also confirmed to the journalists that all the rally participants that she was personally responsible for bringing were paid in full. The ZdG journalists called back 15 minutes later, identified themselves, and asked again about payments. This time she denied any political affiliation, or attendance of the rally, saying that she went to the city to shop and was just passing by.
Election Updates and Hybrid War News
The bulk of today’s updates are election related - either pre-campaigning by parties, or attempts to disrupt the elections or interfere. Here are the top stories:
Police detained 8 young people who brought political banners and 2 coffins onto the territory of the presidential administration. They tried to run away, but when caught by police they were told that they were paid 200 lei each to transport the items and set them up on the lawn. The banners were from Irina Vlah’s Heart of Moldova party. The party denied affiliation calling it "a dirty provocation."
George Simion’s AUR party has activated a cross-border disinformation network and turned it against PAS and Maia Sandu. This was reported by Romanian investigative outlet Context.ro which traced how the Romanian media company, DGI Multimedia Design SRL, that is behind a network of nominally independent media outlets that all spread AUR propaganda has moved into Moldova. Sites such as 60m.ro and anchetatorii.ro are getting cloned into 60m.md and anchetatorii.md. Some sites list fictitious journalists as being behind the articles and promote narratives about how George Soros3 controls Maia Sandu, etc. They also support Ion Ceban and protest his visa ban by the Romanian government. The reporting lists a growing network of websites and social media accounts that have suddenly become active in Moldova to spread these messages.
The State Tax Service (STS) has blocked the accounts of Moldovans under EU sanctions. STS has blocked bank accounts for Victoria Furtună, Alexei Lungu, Irina Lozovan, Alexandr Nesterovschi, as well as the Victoria Block, the A7 company and others affiliated with Ilan Shor and under EU sanctions. At the same time, reports indicated that these sanctions are fatally flawed in the cases of Victoria Furtună, Vadim Grozavu and Alexei Lungu - as they are also Romanian citizens. So long as they use their Romanian passports they are able to ignore EU sanctions.
Igor Dodon claims that he is negotiating with Ion Ceban and the Alternative bloc. Dodon claims that the two men are talking about a coordinated strategy in the elections. Specifically, he said they were talking about minimizing the risks of election “falsifications, especially abroad.” Mayor Ceban’s press secretary has denied any meeting or coordination saying “We do not discuss campaign strategies with anyone outside the Alternative bloc.”
Following the MEGA conference, Brian Brown met with Ion Ceban and Igor Dodon (separately). Dodon posted about the meeting on his facebook page calling Brown an “old friend” and saying that the discussed the “protection and promotion of traditional values.” Brown did not post about his meeting with Dodon, but he did post about his meeting with Ceban saying he was "Proud to have spent time with Chisinau Mayor Ion Ceban. Another leader unfairly persecuted by liberals. European officials target conservatives and use Soviet methods to punish opponents." He specifically tagged JD Vance in the post on X stating that the Vice President was correct (referencing his Munich speech).
Note: mega2025.eu posted no press release about day 2 of the conference. No social media posts were made either. Since registration to the conference closed 24 hours before it was announced (most likely) there were no journalists there either. We’ll circle back if we find out what happened on day 2.
Political Updates and Other News
Here’s a roundup of the top non-election stories of the week:
Electricity prices are falling. The government approved the national energy regulator’s request to reduce prices. Prime Minister Recean explained the timing4 of the price reduction noting that prices on the international market have stabilized, and…
“because the share of renewable energy in consumption has increased by about 8 times - that is, cheaper and green energy. And in recent months we have had records of 30-40% of daily consumption.”
Lawyers succeed in their strike. After the initial term of their 10 day strike expired, the lawyers union announced that they would now start an indefinite strike without exceptions for critical functions. President Sandu then announced that she was returning the bill in question to parliament for review. Since parliament is out of session this effectively vetoed the bill and punted the issue to the new parliament. The lawyers called off their strike after their victory.
President Sandu visited the United Kingdom and met with King Charles III. On her trip she also met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and discussed the UK’s support for Moldova’s democracy and trade relations.
Transnistria has announced that it is raising prices again. Prices for utilities, bus fares and more are going up in the region. This is the second price hike this year, though overall utility prices remain extremely cheap compared to the rest of Moldova.
We’ll be back soon with an update on Vladimir Plahotniuc and what’s next for Moldova’s fugitive oligarch(s).
An interesting note: At the CEC registration the party leaders were joined by former interim president of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) Tamara Chișca-Doneva. The former judge was identified as a lawyer for the Heart of Moldova party. She resigned from the SCJ rather than face the vetting process, under which her integrity and finances would be evaluated. Tamara Chișca-Doneva served as an official representative of Natalia Morari’s presidential campaign in 2024. Morari and Patriot bloc leader Vasile Tarlev are reportedly the other figures banned from entering Romania and the Schengen zone alongside Ion Ceban.
I really don’t know how anyone can read this as saying anything other than “they are backed by wealthy international jews and we are real christians.”
The media network in question is controlled by Marius Lulea, first vice president of AUR. He has written multiple books and in them denied aspects of the holocaust and the culpability of Romanian dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu. So yeah… again… hard to read “Soros” as anything other than a dogwhistle.
It’s worth noting that many in the opposition - including the pro-EU opposition - have been predicting a price reduction just ahead of elections for some time.