Moldova’s Police Uncover Plan To Derail Election

On 17 October 2024, top security officials in Moldova announced that they had exposed a Russian-backed program where hundreds of their citizens were being trained to incite protests against the government. This discovery came to light just three days before the first round of the Moldovan presidential election, in which current president Maia Sandu is up for re-election. The ex-Soviet country also voted on the referendum proposing their European Union membership aspirations. This was a goal set in place by the pro-Western president Sandu, who has been in office since 2020. 

Under the guise of traveling to these countries to attend “cultural events”, the security officials said that more than 300 Moldovan citizens were being trained in Russia as well as Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, to incite street riots and civil unrest aimed at overthrowing the constitutional order ahead of the election. Sarajevo Times explained that citizens were taken in small groups of around 20 people so as to not raise suspicion, and were being trained as early as June of this year. According to police reports relayed by Romania Insider, these individuals were trained in techniques such as, but not limited to, police confrontation tactics, weapon extraction from law enforcement, and quick crowd withdrawal. Some of the plans uncovered by police even detailed the trained protesters going as far as seizing state buildings in the Moldovan capital of Chișinău. Allegedly behind this program is Ilan Șor, a Moldovan politician and businessman who has been hiding in Moscow after being convicted of corrupt practices in Moldova. In 2014, Șor organized a scam that disappeared one billion U.S. dollars from Moldovan banks. The loss resulted in a 12% drop in Moldova’s G.D.P. and led to the arrest of former Prime Minister Vlad Filat. The pro-Russian businessman not only funded the trips to Russia, but also those to Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.  

Moldova is currently on track to achieve its E.U. membership by 2030, a path laid out by Maia Sandu, who won the first round of presidential voting on 20 October 2024. The head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation, Oleksandr Merezhko, said in a comment to Interfax-Ukraine: “Sandu’s victory will mean the victory of the pro-Western democratic forces in Moldova,” and “will be a kind of guarantee of the inevitability of Moldova’s European path to the future.” Additionally, Moldova’s E.U. referendum was approved, winning a very slim majority of 50.46% of the votes. Despite the tense few days leading up to the election, Sandu did not miss the opportunity to celebrate the outcome, writing on Platform X: “The people of Moldova have spoken: Our EU future will now be anchored in the constitution. We fought fairly in an unfair fight — and we won.” The second round of presidential voting will take place two weeks after the first round.

According to Reuters, Russia has since denied meddling in the Moldovan election. The Kremlin even went as far as to accuse the pro-Western government of fear-mongering and encouraging “Russophobia” amongst their citizens. In response to the accusations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moldova’s elections weren’t free and the increase in votes in favor of President Sandu and the E.U. referendum was “hard to explain”. He also challenged the Moldovan president to present evidence of Russian interference. 

While the protest training program was foiled and the October 20th elections were carried out peacefully, Moldova’s fight to distance itself from Russia and its Soviet past is not over. It is hard to imagine that Russia would have put all their eggs in one basket if they didn’t want Moldova, a former Soviet territory, to join forces with the West. The Institute for the Study of War has given its opinion in a recent press release, highlighting that Russia will continue to flex its military, economic, and political ties to the pro-Russian Moldovan regions of Gagauzia and Transnistria. The Kremlin has likely prepared several plans in order to impede Moldova’s 2030 E.U. path. The Institute also issues a distressing warning that the future of Moldova as an independent and sovereign state is directly tied to the outcome of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Abigail Emslander

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