CHISINAU, Moldova (news agencies) — Moldovan historian and politician Octavian Ticu remembers when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, a seismic event that enabled him to become one of the first amateur boxers to fight for his country at the pinnacle of his sport: the Olympic Games.
“It was a happy moment for me,” the 52-year-old recalls, as he wraps his fists at a boxing gym in the capital, Chisinau. “In 1996, I participated in the Olympics in Atlanta. … If I were in the Soviet Union, I would never have accomplished this.”
But today, more than three decades after proclaiming independence, Moldova is being targeted by Russia in a hybrid war of propaganda and disinformation that “wreaks havoc,” Ticu, who competed in the lightweight division, told media.
Like Ukraine and Georgia, the former Soviet republic aspires to join the European Union but is caught in a constant geopolitical tug between Moscow and the West.
“Russian propaganda is a reality of 30 years of independence,” added Ticu, who has written several books on his country’s history.
This story, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, is part of an ongoing media series covering threats to democracy in Europe.
In a national referendum on Oct. 20, Moldovans voted by a razor-thin majority of 50.35% in favor of securing a path toward EU membership. But the result was overshadowed by allegations of a Moscow-backed vote-buying scheme.
In a presidential election held the same day, incumbent pro-Western President Maia Sandu obtained 42% of the vote, but failed to win an outright majority. On Sunday, she will face Alexandr Stoianoglo, a Russia-friendly former prosecutor general, in a runoff viewed as a choice between geopolitical opposites — again.
As in the EU referendum, a poll released this week by research company iData indicates a tight race on Sunday that leans toward a narrow Sandu victory, an outcome that might rely on Moldova’s large diaspora.
The presidential role carries significant powers in areas such as foreign policy and national security.
In the wake of the two October votes, Moldovan law enforcement said that a vote-buying scheme was orchestrated by Ilan Shor, an exiled oligarch who currently lives in Russia and was convicted in absentia in 2023 of fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors say $39 million was paid to more than 130,000 recipients through an internationally sanctioned Russian bank to voters between September and October. Shor denies any wrongdoing.
“These people who go to Moscow, the so-called government-in-exile of Ilan Shor, who come with very large sums of money, are left to roam free,” said Ticu, who ran as a long-shot candidate in the presidential race.
It was “obvious,” Ticu added, that the votes would “not be fair or democratic.” Of the 11 first-round candidates, he was the only one to endorse Sandu in the runoff.
Voters from Moldova’s Kremlin-friendly breakaway region of Transnistria, which declared independence after a short war in the early 1990s, can cast ballots in Moldova proper. Transnistria has been a source of tension during the war in neighboring Ukraine, especially since it is home to a military base with 1,500 Russian troops.
Ticu warned that if Russian troops in Ukraine reach the port city of Odesa, they could “join the Transnistrian region, and then the Republic of Moldova will be occupied.”
In Gagauzia, an autonomous part of Moldova where only 5% voted in favor of the EU, a doctor was detained after allegedly coercing 25 residents of a home for older adults to vote for a candidate they did not choose. Police said they obtained “conclusive evidence,” including financial transfers from the same sanctioned Russian bank.
Anticorruption authorities have conducted hundreds of searches and seized over $2.7 million (2.5 million euros) in cash as they attempt to crack down.
On Thursday, prosecutors raided a political party headquarters and said 12 people were suspected of paying voters to select a candidate in the presidential race. A criminal case was also opened in which 40 state agency employees were suspected of taking electoral bribes.
Instead of winning the overwhelming support that Sandu had hoped, the results in both races exposed Moldova’s judiciary as unable to adequately protect the democratic process. It also allowed some pro-Moscow opposition to question the validity of the votes.
Igor Dodon, the Party of Socialists leader and former president who has close ties to Russia, stated this week that “we don’t recognize” the referendum result, and labeled Sandu “a dictator in a skirt” who will “do whatever it takes to stay in power.”
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