Russia has widened its interference in Moldovan elections to voters living abroad ahead of parliamentary elections this month, according to President Maia Sandu.
Sandu, who relied on the diaspora to win a second term last year and to secure a "yes" vote on EU membership, told the Financial Times that Moscow had intensified its online disinformation campaign.
"The Russians are targeting the diaspora," she said, accusing Moscow of using Russian Orthodox priests to spread propaganda, and deploying the "Matryoshka" bot network to generate fake content while posing as legitimate foreign media.
Sandu -- whose pro-EU Action and Solidarity party is hoping to retain its majority on September 28 -- said she feared a repeat of the 2024 campaign when Russian agents allegedly made fake bomb threats at Moldovan polling stations abroad, including in Germany.
Moldovan security services last year detailed an "unprecedented" Russian assault on the country's electoral process, accusing Moscow of funnelling vast sums of money into the former Soviet country in order to buy votes through a sprawling network of proxies.
Sandu estimated that Russia had spent the equivalent of 1 per cent of Moldova's GDP ''messing with our elections'' in 2024.
Russia's tactics were now evolving, Sandu said. Criminals on Moscow's payroll, she claimed, were now also being used to spark unrest in Moldovan prisons. "It's really a very wide range of tools that Russia is using . . . trying to overwhelm our institutions," she said.
The Kremlin has previously denied being involved in any election meddling abroad.
Sandu called for EU support during a speech at the European parliament in Strasbourg earlier this week.
"I want the EU to learn from our experience," she told the FT ahead of her speech. "Moldova is a fragile democracy, but we can see that some of the things that Russia is doing in Moldova are then exported to other places. We should not underestimate the danger to our democracies."
Brussels pledged €1.8bn in economic support for Moldova last year ahead of a referendum on EU membership called by Sandu which was narrowly won by the "yes" vote.
A presidential election held at the same time was also neck-and-neck between Sandu and a pro-Russian candidate, Alexandr Stoianoglo.
Sandu won the run-off by 55 per cent of the vote thanks to the large Moldovan diaspora. Had only the domestic ballots been counted, she would have lost the election, as voters turned on her over rising energy costs linked to the war in Ukraine, and Moldova's move to cut reliance on Russian supplies.
Moldova's progress on the path to EU membership has stalled as its bid is coupled with that of Ukraine. Both countries applied to join the bloc in 2022, after Russia's full-scale invasion.
But Hungary's Viktor Orbán has refused to open membership talks with Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has insisted Kyiv and Chișinău should advance in lockstep.
"Given the pressure that we face from Russia and the threats that we face, EU integration is the only way for us to survive as a democracy," Sandu said. "We do believe that the EU should find a solution so that both Moldova and Ukraine will get to the next steps."
Sandu has cast the upcoming parliamentary election as a final hurdle on Moldova's EU accession path.
But her party is up against a strong adversary after Stoianoglo announced a coalition of three opposition parties coming together to challenge her PAS.
Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor-general, has called for Moldova to be in "harmony" with "both west and east". His Alternative Bloc coalition nominally supports EU integration, but Sandu said her opponents aimed to undo Moldova's progress and rejoin Russia's sphere of influence.
On Tuesday, she told the European parliament that the Kremlin is seeking "to capture Moldova through the ballot box".