This article is the final installment in a four-part Moldova Matters series based on a new report published in collaboration with WatchDog examining the role of religion in Kremlin-aligned influence operations during Moldova’s 2024–2025 election cycle.
In this final piece we examine how the Kremlin is attempting to synchronize their faith-based messaging about Moldova with a larger ecosystem of Russian “anti-globalist” “traditional values” “anti-Sorosist” messaging. In particular we’ll look at how the contradictions and obvious falsehoods in much of this campaign create opportunities for those seeking to combat Russian Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI).
You can read the whole report online from WatchDog.
Part 4: Cross-Border Ideological Synchronization
The narratives and FIMI campaigns discussed in this series of articles represent both tactical efforts at political manipulation and strategic efforts to align with Kremlin-allies across the west. Putin’s Russia did not begin a conversation about “traditional values” vs “globalists” / “Sorosists.” This is language that they have adopted and adapted from existing western discourse. Figures like Brian Brown, who spoke at the Make Europe Great Again (MEGA) conference in Chișinău in July 2025, embody the long history of these connections. Brown is the President of the World Congress of Families, an organization that was co-founded by American and Russian intellectuals in 1997 to promote the “traditional family.” His involvement in influence campaigns around the Moldovan election, and much deeper involvement in support of George Simion in Romania’s elections, show the increasing ties between the religious right in the US, Romania, Moldova and Russia.
In spite of all of these connections, the strategy of aligning all of these groups with Russia’s geopolitical aims suffers from 2 major inconsistencies:
A deep aversion to Socialism / Communism amongst the religious right.
The complete lack of truth in the claims of “religious oppression” and the Orthodox-centric character of the allegations.
The Problem for the Socialists and People’s Republics
The narratives and campaigns discussed here are part of a broader re-alignment of politics across the region. Moldova’s Soviet-legacy Communist and Socialist parties have never been left wing and always took a center-right position in Moldova’s vague left-right spectrum. With the larger regional / global conversation about ideological politics and the era of power blocs over, this was a useful fudge. They could be both conservative and nostalgic for the (mostly) elderly voters who supported them.
In 2025 this ambiguity became a liability and Socialist leader Igor Dodon openly floated the idea of renaming the party the “Party of Sovereigntists of Moldova.” This potential move was calculated to align his party with Romania’s George Simion and the growing MEGA / sovereigntist movement in Europe. As recently as 2018 Dodon was calling Simion a “fascist,” but in May 2025 he had endorsed Simion’s presidential run and was musing about renaming his own party. Ultimately Dodon did not make the change, either due to party opposition, worries about giving up the Soviet nostalgia that they rely on, or simply due to a lack of time before the elections.
This exposed them internationally and opened up opportunities for PAS and pro-EU groups to message in ways designed to divide right wing talking points about Moldova. Moldova’s Ambassador to the United States, Vlad Kulminski, gave an interview to Fox News following the election where he stated:
“Essentially Russia tried to keep the Republic of Moldova within its orbit, and, in order to do that, it interfered massively in the recent parliamentary elections in the country. And Russia was backing a coalition of Communists, Socialists and Antifa against a center right government party.”
The false inclusion of “Antifa” in this mix only underlines how much electoral messaging is being framed in MAGA terms globally. This analysis about the Communists and Socialists made little sense in Moldova, but drove a wedge into arguments being made in these FIMI campaigns.
Another example of this comes from Conrad Franz’s trip to Transnistria. There he quickly absorbed his host’s propaganda about how there is perfect religious freedom in Transnistria and their portrayal of the region as an Orthodox paradise. At the same time, he noticed a major contradiction - statues of Lenin and Marx everywhere. In subsequent podcasts he explained how he sought to square that circle by putting the question directly to Transnistrian “President” Vadim Krasnoselsky. On the Counterflow Podcast Episode 383 Conrad Franz explained:
“But if you talk to the president, Vadim Krasnoselsky, he would say, and it’s like one of my favorite quotes of any politician and recently he said, “People accuse us of being a sliver of the Soviet Union. I say no. I say we’re actually a sliver of the Russian Empire.” And he’s like a huge imperial historian. And you look at all the new statues that have been built as opposed to the ones that were built under the Soviet times, and they’re all imperial. The biggest statue in Tiraspol is of Suvorov. One of the biggest statues they have is of Catherine the Great, who obviously is the one that initially brought all of this part of the world under Russia. The church is very prominent in town.”
Emphasis mine.
These contradictions create problems for their messaging campaigns and opportunities for those seeking to counter their message even in their own target demographics. But they are adapting and it is very possible that the Party of Socialists does rebrand, or is replaced as the primary Russian proxy by a “sovereigntists” party before the next elections.
The Real State of Religious Tolerance in Moldova
On its face the message that Christians are being persecuted in Moldova by the government and at the behest of the EU holds no water. The specific claim that the Orthodox Church, which claims 95% of the population as adherents is under assault by a secular, globalist, “satanic” government does not add up. If such a crime were happening it is clear that more people than Bishop Markell would be speaking about it. At the same time it is worth taking a look at the people who would be feeling religious persecution, if such a thing existed, namely, those who follow minority religious groups.
To get this perspective I spoke to multiple people in the Evangelical Christian community who agreed to be quoted as “missionaries serving in Moldova.” Evangelicals, representing Baptists, Pentecostals and other protestant denominations make up between 2% and 3% of the population. This community knows quite a bit about state oppression as many of the church elders got their start as bible smugglers or running covert churches during the Soviet period. Many of these churches began as household gatherings forced to hide from the authorities.
Modernly, the Evangelical community has many political differences but largely shares the concerns of the Orthodox church related to the EU. They worry about LGBTQ+ freedoms, abortion and they see the moral perspectives of Western Europe as alien to their way of life. Some segments of the community also adhere to conspiracy theories around COVID and vaccines that are highly prevalent in the Orthodox community. Where these agreements part sharply however is on Ukraine1.
The New Iron Curtain for Believers
One missionary I spoke with had knowledge of the religious situation across what he called the “New Iron Curtain” and explained it as follows: there are 3 levels of religious oppression in our region radiating out from Russia.
The Russian Federation - The 2016 “Yarovaya” law and its subsequent implementation has effectively banned religious freedoms. Churches have been closed, pastors have been arrested and currently sit in jail. Religious organizations outside of the Russian Orthodox Church are denied registration, and unregistered religious activity is equated with terrorism.
Belarus - Officially they mirror Russian law, but enforcement is less strict. Oppression is bureaucratic and legal and Evangelical churches are denied licenses. Pastors are sitting in jail but the oppression is not absolute and the church exists in the shadows.
Transnistria - The region’s “laws” also mimic Russia’s but the oppression is less than Belarus. The missionary I spoke with was not aware of church leaders currently being imprisoned, but noted that there is no official freedom to operate there. No evangelism is allowed and bureaucratic rules prevent gatherings and any official registration.
Asked to characterize the situation in Moldova he stated:
“Ukraine has the most religious freedom in Europe, after Ukraine is Moldova”
Asked to explain that assertion he cited examples of political correctness and what he viewed as limits on speech in various countries in Western Europe. He stated that Moldova and Ukraine are not like that, saying that the countries aren’t “anti-woke” because they never became “woke” in the first place. Asked about assertions by the bloggers and podcasters from this report about how Moldova is more oppressive of religious freedom than the Soviet Union he became apoplectic and did not feel that this statement even deserved response.
One of the missionaries I spoke to explained that the only persecution he had ever witnessed in Moldova was carried out by local priests of the Moldovan Orthodox Church. He explained that in the past these priests might hire local drunken brawlers to assault missionaries with the goal of drawing the police in and getting the missionaries removed from the town. But even that was more than 10 years ago.
For him, his church community was extremely cognizant of how their rights stand now. He said that during open prayer at his church…
“At least once every 2 weeks someone at our church will pray and give thanks for their freedom. They do not mean political freedom, they mean religious freedom.”
Narratives a Mile Wide and an Inch Deep
The contradictions in the messaging around religion in Moldovan politics present serious challenges for Russian FIMI as they continue to push a strategy of aligning and integrating messaging with European far-right and American far-right groups.
Their attempts to target messages at a figure like JD Vance rely on carefully phrased arguments in articles like the one in LifeSiteNews that mostly elide the tougher questions of religious freedom in a country and fully avoid the words “Socialist” and “Communist.” Messaging directed at ROCOR is much more explicit, but is aimed at a small (if highly mobilized) group within the US.
Speaking to Evangelical groups none felt that their churches had been targeted specifically with messaging around the elections. Most of those I spoke to felt that the majority of their community under 50 supported Moldova’s EU integration - though many had reservations. None knew of widespread support for the Russian war in Ukraine or for Moldova returning to the Russian world. None knew of a single instance of their community showing anything but open arms to Ukrainian refugees.
This mirrored actions early in the war by other religious minorities - including Catholics, Muslims and the Jewish Community, which all played outsized roles in refugee relief efforts relative to their community size.
It is plausible that this is the reason that figures like Brian Brown and Bausman’s Bloggers did not appear to engage with minority religious groups as part of their campaigns.
Series Conclusion
In the 2024 and 2025 elections Russia has run active FIMI campaigns targeting religious messaging inside and outside Moldova. They used sophisticated and evolving campaigns that were not simply tactical but were aligned with broader political narratives in Moldova, Europe and the US that Russia sees as sympathetic to their cause.
In Moldova, Shor-network actors adapted 2024 efforts at simple bribery of priests to create a complex network of paid “activists” and online infrastructure organized around the “Salt and Light” newspaper. This network mixed traditional religious content with covert religious messaging and overt calls to action - largely with AI developed pictures. They gathered millions of views and built infrastructure that mostly remains intact and ready for reactivation in future campaigns.
Outside Moldova these narratives were retooled to appeal to MAGA and MEGA figures with the apparent primary hope of triggering statements or social media posts by JD Vance or other senior American figures. Failing that, they spread anti-PAS, anti-Maia Sandu and anti-EU messaging through both main-stream right-wing media outlets and into niche but highly engaged groups like ROCOR. Much of the content produced in this campaign took place in the months after the elections with the most recent content about the trip coming in December 2025.
Strategically, religious messaging is one component of a larger Russian strategy of ideological alignment across right wing groups in the US and Europe. Activists and organizations such as the World Congress of Families have worked towards this goal for years and are now playing a role working to bring these politicians and communities together. Political culture war issues, LGBTQ+ rights and other “traditional family” topics provide fertile common ground for discussion or cooperation. At the same time, much Kremlin FIMI around Moldova seeks to extend this common ground to objectively untrue claims about religious persecution and lack of free speech. The experience of actual religious minorities, as well as the continued use of Soviet nostalgia, provide fertile soil for counter narratives and debunking of claims.
Looking forward, these networks - inside and outside Moldova - are likely to play an ever more key role in Kremlin FIMI. In a hybrid war of disinformation and propaganda that is increasingly targeted by population segments but unconstrained by borders it will be important not only to be aware of these campaigns, but to counter-program and to actively exploit the weaknesses of their narratives.
This concludes a four-part Moldova Matters series based on a new report produced with WatchDog. Readers interested in the full analysis can read the complete report here.
At the beginning of the war the Evangelical Community in Moldova came together and created a highly coordinated and effective support network for Ukrainian refugees. They brought refugee families into their homes, opened their churches and many of them used private and church vehicles to pick people up from the border and bring them to shelter as early as the first night of the war. The community also coordinated closely with churches in Ukraine and around Western Europe to create highly sophisticated and well financed supply chains for food, medical supplies and other types of aid. These efforts are still ongoing to this day. This departed markedly from both the political position of the Moldovan Orthodox Church, as well as the lack of almost any social support for refugees from either Orthodox Church.