How Russia’s ‘shadow war’ could impact Moldova’s pro-EU polls

Russia’s “hybrid warfare” against Moldova is expected to increase in intensity through 2024, focusing on Moldova’s planned constitutional referendum on joining the EU expected to happen in November.

In December, Moldova’s President Maia Sandu announced she would seek a second term in the presidential elections planned for November 2024. She also announced that Moldova would conduct a nationwide referendum asking citizens whether they want to join the European Union.

This proposed referendum, which would codify a European vector into the Moldovan constitution, is planned for the same day as the presidential elections in November.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moldova has faced a series of challenges as Russia has attempted to coerce the country into abandoning its European path. Moldova’s pro-EU government and president have called this “hybrid warfare” aimed at overturning the country’s constitutional structures.

“Although Moldova has not been attacked by missiles, we are subject to a wide range of the most treacherous attacks,” Sandu said this week in reference to hybrid warfare.

“We are talking about airspace violations, attempts to cause social tension, cyber-attacks and the dissemination of false information, and an attempt at mass bribery in local elections last fall,” she added.

One of the major figures in this hybrid warfare is the fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, convicted for his part in the 2014 bank heist called the “Theft of the Billion.” Shor fled Moldova to avoid arrest and currently leads multiple populist pro-Russian political parties from his home in Tel Aviv.

Throughout 2023 these political formations organised street protests which included violent agitators and which President Sandu described as an attempted coup d’etat planned by the Kremlin.

These protests did not spark popular uprisings and withered in size over the spring as the police and security services worked to interdict the financial networks distributing money to paid protestors. The border police also began to aggressively turn away suspected Russian infiltrators, including Wagner mercenaries.

Following the failure to spark a mass movement against the pro-EU government, Russian-affiliated political groups in Moldova instead changed tack to try and sway the outcome of November’s local elections.

In June, Moldova’s Constitutional Court ruled that the eponymously named “Shor” party was unconstitutional because it stood against the “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity” of the nation.

Since then, various Shor-affiliated and Kremlin-backed political parties have appeared. These new parties conducted a mass campaign of voter bribery using smuggled cash and prepaid debit cards, which were then distributed to voters using a multi-level marketing approach.

Local supporters and average people looking to make money would distribute cash to potential voters, usually around 50€ per person, earning a commission for each voter bribed. Police struggled to cut the financial flows of this network in Moldova, which was centrally controlled from abroad.

In addition to grassroots bribery, Ilan Shor also engaged in bribing local and national politicians to bring them into his various parties.

In one high-profile case, a former member of parliament was approached by Shor but agreed to work undercover for prosecutors. This led to the arrests of two members of parliament who had defected from the Socialist Party, as well as local election candidates.

The Shor parties have a populist message that attacks the government over the rise in energy prices and inflation. They claim that the pro-EU government is creating economic hardship by moving away from Russia and promise that, if they are elected, they will launch a broad programme of “bread and circuses.”

This includes attracting “international investors” for local infrastructure projects and amusement parks.

Russia’s three-pronged approach

Shor’s political parties are not the only pro-Russian forces operating in Moldova. Just as these populist efforts adopted a distributed approach towards parties and candidates, Russia appears to have taken a three-pronged approach to political and influence operations in Moldova.

Firstly, there are the traditionally pro-Russian Socialist and Communist parties.

These parties have a nostalgic pro-Russian and pro-Soviet message that opposes the EU and emphasizes Moldovan “neutrality.”  The Socialist party, which had previously called for holding a referendum on joining the EU, has backed off that line and is now opposing the referendum calling it “political theatre.”

Second are the many Shor parties and affiliated candidates.

Welcoming the referendum, Ilan Shor has said that “for many years, many politicians were embarrassed to speak out loud about the disadvantages of joining the EU”.

“You can no longer remain silent. The movement towards the European Union will only result in disadvantages for Moldova. Our path is to the East!” he added.

There are new political groups made up of formerly pro-Russian politicians who now profess to stand for European integration. The most prominent of this group are Chisinau Mayor Ion Ceban and former Bashkan of Gagauzia, Irina Vlah. Both were formerly prominent pro-Russian politicians with the Socialist Party.

Mayor Ceban founded the National Alternative Movement or MAN party in 2021 which claims to be pro-European. Irina Vlah now claims to be an independent.

Both Ceban and Vlah are now professing to be pro-European politicians and both are expected to challenge Sandu for the presidency in November.

Moldova’s experience in 2023 showed that Russian propaganda, illicit funding, disinformation, and political tactics are rapidly evolving in an attempt to evade law enforcement and bring maximum pressure on the country’s pro-European government.

This effort, which was brought to bear on a local election campaign,  is expected to ramp up in advance of the much more important presidential elections and a national referendum in November.

[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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