Welcome to the second newsletter dedicated to the parliamentary elections in Moldova. This week, Context’s latest investigation reveals how Russian influence networks exploit religion in Moldova. Kremlin-linked NGOs are submitting memoranda to the UN, while Moscow propagandists are amplifying accusations of “religious persecution” to attack Maia Sandu’s government and call into question Moldova’s EU candidacy.
EFOR offers a broader perspective through its new analysis of coordinated inauthentic behavior and its video series The Post-Communist Transition for Dummies, which explains how Russia and China are investing heavily in rewriting Eastern Europe’s recent past, portraying the transition from communism as a failure and mocking the democratic institutions built after 1990. The first episode reveals the so-called “pro-Putin grand narrative,” which argues that the hardships of the 1990s were a tragedy imposed by the West, rather than part of the road to democracy.
Context.ro – The Kremlin’s religious war ahead of the Moldovan elections
On the eve of parliamentary elections, Russian agents of influence disguised as NGOs or MEPs accuse Moldova of religious discrimination. The scenario is not new. It was applied in Ukraine and propagated in an organized manner in the US and the EU.
In Moldova, President Maia Sandu is accused of banning religious processions, but not marches by sexual minorities, and at the UN and EU, Russian-backed NGOs accuse her of religious persecution. The accusations are sometimes made by Russian diplomats themselves, such as Ambassador Oleg Ozerov, who speaks of the “persecution of priests” by the pro-Western government and the Romanian Church.
Shortly before the parliamentary elections in Moldova, a non-governmental organization supported by the Russian Federation accuses Moldova of religious persecution of its citizens and submits a memorandum to the UN Human Rights Commission. The organization is part of a network of organizations that lobby on behalf of the Russian Patriarchate and apply the same strategy in Moldova as in Ukraine.
The theme of persecution is taken up and amplified by a network of publications, influencers, NGOs, and politicians who use it as a pretext to question Moldova’s EU candidacy or to call for an end to military aid to Ukraine.
One of them is a former spy, a double agent during the Cold War, who admitted that he was approached by the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) and who is currently a member of the European Parliament and has denounced to the EU “the abuses observed against Orthodox Christians belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate” in Moldova.
Margarita Simonyan, the Kremlin’s propaganda chief, also writes about religious persecution in Moldova. Editor-in-chief of Russia Today, Simonyan was included last year on the US sanctions list for her key role in Russia’s efforts to exert malign influence abroad.
In Moldova, President Maia Sandu has already warned that the church will be one of Russia’s lines of attack.
Read the full article here.
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Moldova’s digital battlefield: August-September monitoring
Our report “Coordinated inauthentic behavior in Moldova: 23 days before the election” documents the scale of disinformation systems operating in real time on social media platforms in Moldova.
The investigation, based on the analysis of 3,391 videos, 36,338 comments, and 100 identified inauthentic accounts, reveals an alarming reality. From fake accounts generated by artificial intelligence that mimic the character of the “flower aunt” to coordinated international networks that create the illusion of organic posting behavior, the report presents the complete anatomy of sophisticated information warfare.
Underlying this manipulation is a systematic campaign of fearmongering, designed to create constant anxiety about external threats, EU occupation, and loss of sovereignty. The analysis reveals that fear-based messages dominate the narrative landscape, with coordinated accounts spreading alarmist stories about forced integration and foreign control.
The Great Pro-Putin Narrative: Why Russia Wants You to Believe Democracy Was a Tragedy
Episode 1 of The Post-Communist Transition for Dummies reveals one of the Kremlin’s favorite lines of propaganda: that the transition after 1989 was nothing but humiliation, hardship, and loss imposed by the West. In reality, this “great pro-Putin narrative” aims to erase the achievements of the new democracies, fuel nostalgia for authoritarianism, and weaken confidence in European institutions. By rewriting history, Russia and China seek to undermine not only Moldova and Romania in an election year, but also the liberal international order itself.
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