President Sandu met with Pope Leo XIV
On September 12th President Maia Sandu traveled to the Vatican and met with the Pope. She was accompanied by her mother, Emilia Sandu, and sister Veronica Sandu.
Describing the meeting on a facebook post the President wrote:
"I told him about the kindness and generosity of Moldovans, about how our people remain deeply attached to Christian values. Even in difficult times, when the Soviet regime deported priests and turned churches into stables, people guarded the holy places as best they could and kept the faith alive. We also talked about how, with a war on the border, we knew how to show compassion and solidarity. That's how we became known as a small country with a big heart. Faith and humanity keep our nation resilient and dignified. His Holiness assured me that Moldova is seen, that Moldova is heard,"
President Sandu presented the Pope with Moldovan painter Valeria Duca’s work “Survival.” The painting depicts a Ukrainian refugee and is part of a series presented in 2024 titled “February 2022: Echoes.” You can view more of Valeria Duca haunting oil paintings on her website here.
While in Rome President Sandu also met with Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni.
Other Foreign Affairs:
Here’s a roundup of the other top foreign affairs stories of the last week:
President Sandu and the Moldovan government continue to condemn Russia’s attacks on Ukraine. In posts on social media she condemned the recent attacks in Kyiv that killed many innocent civilians, including a baby, and damaged Ukraine’s government building. She also condemned Russia’s intentional violation of Polish airspace and called for Europe to invest more heavily in air defense.
Moldova’s new ambassador to the US, Vlad Kulminski, presented his credentials to President Trump. A press release from the Moldovan embassy described the meeting as follows:
"He stressed our country's commitment to preserving peace as a vital national interest, and expressed gratitude to President Trump - whom he described as the only person capable of stopping the war - for his consistent efforts to bring peace to the region. The Ambassador also highlighted Moldova's progress in strengthening energy independence and openness to investments by American companies."
Could Moldova get a US Ambassador soon? This week the US Senate is expected to formalize a series of procedural changes that will allow them to begin appointing Trump’s nominees in groups. Earlier this year Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) used a procedural tactic to block the use of unanimous consent to quickly vote through State Department nominees. His move was in retaliation for the destruction of USAID. This move required the Senate to use valuable floor time to vote on each nominee one by one - in essence freezing up the process. This is the primary reason that Moldova, and lots of other countries, do not have confirmed ambassadors. Republicans took the “nuclear option” and reduced the voting threshold from 60 votes to 51 to confirm blocks (groups) of nominees at the same time. This will clear the way to speedy appointments and the potential for Moldova to get a Senate confirmed ambassador.
US Senators of the Foreign Relations Committee call on facebook and Google to prevent the spread of disinformation in Moldova’s elections. Ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and member Thom Tillis (R-NC) wrote a letter to Meta and Alphabet asking them to allocate resources to police against foriegn interference writing: “While we must be agnostic to the results of Moldova’s elections, we cannot be indifferent to foreign powers’ efforts to put their thumb on the scale for parties or candidates.” The particularly highlighted the need to implement sanctions against Ilan Shor and his network.
Election Poll - “Undecided” Leads
Watchdog.md and CBS Research released a new poll this week asking Moldovans who they would vote for if the election was held this weekend. Of the parties and blocs, PAS was by far the favorite, but trailed the combined numbers for “undecided,” “no response” and “no one.”
The poll indicates that only 3 parties / blocs would enter parliament: PAS, the Patriotic Bloc and Renato Usatii’s “Our Party.” Mayor Ceban’s Alternative Bloc scored only 4.2% in the poll, well short of the 7% threshold for blocs.
Ion Ceban posted a video on his facebook page condemning these poll results and calling on supporters not to pay attention to them. He called them a “gross manipulation.”
Removing parties that did not pass the threshold, and considering only decided voters, PAS has 55% in this poll.
Author’s Note: Watchdog and CBS Research are trustworthy pollsters with a good track record, at the same time - there are serious problems with any attempts to poll this election - especially when trying to understand the likely moves of undecided voters. For more information check this recent article all about polling:
The poll also asked questions about which institutions voters trust, with the Church and education system coming out on top, and parliament coming out on the bottom with a dismal 45% of respondents expressing “absolutely no trust” in the legislature. Asked whether the country is on the right track / wrong track the response was 41.2% right track, 48.3% wrong track. While this number is still underwater, it remains close to a 20 year high.
Other Election News:
Here’s a roundup of the other top election news of the week:
The Central Election Commission (CEC) issued a warning to Mayor Ceban regarding his trip to Italy. Elected officials are required to suspend their roles in office while campaigning, and the CEC ruled that Ceban’s visit to Italy was in his official capacity as Mayor of Chisinau. The CEC ruled that “… he obtained this visa using, according to the Italian Embassy's response, namely his official position. So, he was admitted to the EU territory as mayor general of Chisinau, and not as citizen Ion Ceban.” Ceban’s people said that it could not have been a campaign event because he had no public communications from Italy. The CEC vote was 5-3 and essentially ruled that his presence in Italy was itself a campaign move (proving that he was not totally shut out of the EU).
Ion Ceban posted a video of a woman sorting through ballots that he alleges indicates impending election fraud. The CEC responded that the video is 2 years old from local elections, and does not represent fraud of any kind. They stated that "The video material represents an attempt to manipulate public opinion and undermine citizens' trust in the elections."
Alternative Bloc leader Mark Tkciuk stated on TV that he supported Moldova signing the Kozak Memorandum. Asked by an interviewer how he reflected back on Russia’s plan to unite Moldova and Transnistria 22 years ago, Tkciuk reflected that he advised then President Voronin to sign the document. The Kozak Memorandum was a proposal to transform Moldova’s constitution into an asymmetrical federal republic where Russian speakers in Transnistria and Gagauzia would be allocated more seats in parliament than the rest of the country, in spite of being less than 20% of the total population. It also would have codified the position of the Russian army in Moldova for an additional 20 years, and elevated Russian alongside “Moldovan” as an official language. If you want to know more about this process check out this podcast from last year:
Shor / Hybrid War Updates
Here’s a roundup of the top stories related to Russia’s hybrid war against Moldova:
PromoLex and ZdG report on more unauthorized “push polls.” These polls, which were first reported by Agora, are not authorized by the CEC and therefore illegal during the election period. The goal seems to be stoking fear as the polls focus on “what if” scenarios where Moldova’s continued EU accession results in war with Russia. ZdG reported on various facebook pages that push out the results of these “polls” with paid advertising.
The Lithuanian government announced that Irina Vlah is banned from the country for 5 years. The country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: "Irina Vlah regularly visits Russia, meets with officials of the aggressor country, and coordinates actions by which Russia interferes in Moldova's internal affairs and democratic processes, including in the upcoming parliamentary elections in Moldova." Vlah blamed the decision on PAS calling it political. Also this week, Moldova’s State Tax Service (STS) blocked Irina Vlah’s bank accounts in response to recent Canadian sanctions against her.
Bots with multiple personalities. The Romanian news outlet Investigatoria reported on how a large network of Romanian bots, with Romanian names and who had been previously used to influence Romanian elections, suddenly all started speaking Russian. The bots suddenly shifted language as they all posted comments on a live stream video by Renato Usatii. Most comments were conspiracy theories - about how USAID supported PAS, etc. Comment floods like this on live videos are designed to trick the algorithm into promoting the content and getting it in front of real users. The investigation shows how the wrong botnet was used, either because of a curator error, or because Usatii started speaking in Romanian and then switched into Russian - potentially triggering the bots to mindlessly follow him.
Police are now conducting almost daily raids in cases targeting illicit financing of parties and voter bribery. Today police announced the seizure of 20 million lei following raids in Chisinau. Last week they seized 3 million lei in a series of raids and they detained 15 persons, including former MP Viorel Melnic, a close associate of Ilan Shor. The former Shor party president of the Glodeni territorial office was sentenced to more than 5 years in prison for distributing more than 5 million lei in electoral bribes. The charges stem from 2022 when she managed a network of 870 people being paid $100 / day to protest. We don’t cover all of these stories on Moldova Matters because they are occurring constantly, but it is important to keep in mind that police and prosecutors are making arrests, seizing funds and bringing cases all the time.
Former police officer and wanted fugitive Ion Perju was arrested by police. Perju was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in beating protestor Valeriu Boboc to death during the April 2009 events. He has evaded police for more than 10 years and never been flagged by any other Interpol countries. He was found during a raid on a Shor network office where he was apparently working as a coordinator responsible for converting crypto payments into cash. For more information on the violent events of April 2009 see this podcast from last year:
Romanian authorities arrested Alexandru Balan, former deputy director of the Moldovan Security and Intelligence Service (SIS). Romania alleges that the former senior Moldovan intelligence officer has been passing secrets damaging to Romanian security to the Belarusian KGB in exchange for cash since 2024. They noted that their investigation was conducted in concert with intelligence partners in Hungary and the Czech Republic. Balan was arrested while departing the airport in Timisoara where he was prepared to speak at en event titled "The pro-European path and the challenges of the future. The 2025 parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova1." The BBC has reported that his arrest is part of a larger Belarusian spy network that was dismantled by the Romanian, Czech and Hungarian authorities. Multiple Belarusian diplomates were expelled from these countries and Moldova announced the expulsion of a Belarusian diplomat as well. No public statement was made explaining why the diplomat was expelled, but timing suggests that the stories are related.
Plahotniuc Updates
The Moldovan authorities have confirmed that the Greek Government has agreed to the extradition of Vladimir Plahotniuc. They anticipate that he will be flown from Athens to Chisinau on September 25th - but caution that this is only a preliminary date and the extradition process is ongoing.
Plaha is back to posting long screeds on his facebook page via his lawyers. He continues to denigrate the work of the current government, talk up his “successes” while in power, and promises he will come back soon with more information about his election plan.
Here are some other news stories related to Plaha and his reactivating network:
Constantin Țuțu was released by Greek authorities. Recall, he was arrested alongside Plahotniuc but is not wanted by Moldova (despite having multiple criminal cases working their way through court). Following his release prosecutors say that he left Greece on September 16th, flying to Chisinau and then leaving for Transnistria. He is assumed to be there now. His lawyer denied this information saying that he is still in Greece.
The Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) has definitively barred the Modern Democratic Party (PDMM) from the elections. The ruling backed up a CEC decision and was based on the delisting of the party by the Public Services Agency (ASP) which was done in reference to SIS notifications. In the brief moment that Plaha’s party seemed poised to participate in the elections, they booted up a large TikTok and social media bot network. Bots, mostly AI, commented in Romanian spreading messages attacking Maia Sandu, PAS, EU integration, the “collective west” and more.
Anti-Corruption prosecutors detained former PDM MP Vladimir Andronachi. Once one of Plaha’s right hand men, Andronachi has been on quite a journey since 2019. He initially fled the country with Plaha, but was returned in November 2022 when the Ukrainian government expelled him from their territory and turned him over to Moldovan law enforcement - a situation that his lawyers characterize as “kidnapping.” He was wanted in connection to multiple cases, including the Theft of the Billion, and has been in and out of jail / house arrest / judicial control (bail) since then. Prosecutors say that this arrest is in relation to a new case involving nearly half a million dollars in money laundering. The alleged crimes took place in 2014 and an investigation was opened in 2021 but stalled. Now prosecutors claim to have new evidence and are seeking preventative detention calling him a flight risk. The judge agreed and placed him in 30 days preventative detention.
Economics - Moldova Will Get a New Stock Exchange
At Moldova Business Week (going on now) an announcement was made that a branch of the Bucharest Stock Exchange is set to open in Chisinau in Summer 2026. The founders and shareholders of the exchange are the Moldovan Government (through the Public Property Agency), the Bucharest Stock Exchange; the banks MAIB, OTB Bank and Moldindconbank; and the companies Donaris Vienna Insurance Group, MK Kapita and Moldcell. The exchange will offer various financial products including stocks, bonds and government securities.
Speaking about the importance of this project, Minister of Economy Doina Nistor stated:
"This is a new investment project that we are implementing together with the Bucharest Stock Exchange and a group of local investors. This project is truly unique, because we are interested in more investments, in the growth of more local companies. More citizens will be able to invest wisely and protect their investments. I believe that the capital market is the missing component for Moldova's economic growth. And I am very happy that at this particular moment we can activate and consolidate our capital market by announcing a new stock exchange,"
The university hosting the event came under serious criticism but noted that Balan had a history of speaking in support of Moldova’s EU accession and as an expert analyst. Later reports came out from colleagues saying that he was anything but pro-EU, suggesting either that he may have been seeking to infiltrate these networks.
Interesting stuff, thanks.
Based on my experience in a wildly different country, I suspect that the challenge for PAS is to get voters who are disillusioned with inflation etc to bother to turn out...