Moldova election faces AI-driven disinformation from Russia

Moldovans are facing a flood of disinformation driven by artificial intelligence ahead of a critical parliamentary election that will determine whether the small country stays on its path toward the European Union or drifts back toward Moscow. Ahead of Sunday’s vote to choose a new 101-seat legislature, online monitoring groups have tracked propaganda and disinformation campaigns attributed to Russia, aimed at diminishing support for the ruling pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity, or PAS. Many observers view the vote as a geopolitical choice between East and West, with researchers saying the campaigns mark a new phase in Russian influence operations that rely on fresh infrastructure and heavy use of AI. Spoof websites impersonate legitimate Western media, and engagement farms in Africa pay to boost narratives, while AI bots flood comment sections deriding PAS and the EU.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu has warned that Sunday’s ballot could prove the “most consequential” in the country’s history, potentially determining whether Moldova remains a stable democracy or is pulled away from Europe. She has said joining the EU will shield Moldova from the greatest threat it faces: Russia. Police have carried out mass operations in the lead-up to the vote, including raids in which 74 people were arrested across 250 raids as part of investigations into an alleged Russia-backed plan to incite mass riots and destabilize the country. The pro-European PAS, which Sandu founded in 2016, won a clear majority in the 2021 parliamentary election but faces a tougher contest this time with no obvious pro-European alternative on the ballot and several Russia-friendly options on offer.

Since Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moldova has pursued EU membership, receiving candidate status that year and open accession negotiations that Brussels began last year. Moldovan authorities have long warned that Moscow seeks to disrupt elections, spread disinformation, and fund pro-Russian groups to derail the country’s European trajectory. Moscow denies meddling in Moldova.

Restmedia, an English-language AI-driven platform identified by Reset Tech, has become a focal point of the AI-enabled misinformation ecosystem. Reset Tech, which monitors digital threats to democracy and Russian influence operations since 2022, found that Restmedia proclaims to expose and address issues shaping Europe’s future, but its content is generated entirely by AI tools. About a quarter of Restmedia’s content centers on Moldova and is translated and amplified by websites in other EU languages. The platform publishes Kremlin-aligned propaganda that attacks Sandu, PAS, and the EU.

“We have learned to detect the fingerprints of these Russian secret services in lots of different countries … and seen them really active in Moldova,” said Ben Scott, the director of Reset Tech, in an interview with The Associated Press. “And not surprising, because Moldova has some very critical elections.” The 36-page report notes Restmedia pays engagement farms in Africa to promote its narratives across verified accounts on X in an amplification-for-hire scheme. Although Restmedia attempted to mask its infrastructure, researchers found clear technical links to Russia via IP addresses and website metadata. “I’m not at all shocked by the sophistication because it isn’t sophisticated. What’s remarkable about it is how large it is,” Scott said. “If a couple of researchers at an NGO like ours can find a big Russian information operation targeting Moldova, why is it that big companies … can’t do it?” Google said it proactively tracks and tackles coordinated election-influence operations, noting that on YouTube it has terminated more than 1,000 channels since June 2024 for participating in coordinated influence operations targeting Moldova.

Expert Forum, a Romanian think tank monitoring the Moldovan election, reported between Aug. 5 and Sept. 4 that 100 inauthentic TikTok accounts generated about 13.9 million views in a campaign driven by “fear and resentment,” largely targeting PAS. The NGO later detected a “mirror network” of those 100 TikTok accounts on Facebook. Promo-Lex, another Moldovan nonprofit, found 500 fake TikTok accounts posting the same videos and anti-EU and anti-Sandu narratives, amassing about 1.3 million views in three days. Driven by 25 core accounts, the network used two election-related hashtags to manipulate TikTok’s algorithm and push content into trending status.

The Moldovan government has moved to counter the spread of disinformation. On Sept. 16, Sandu signed a decree creating a center to counter disinformation. The disinformation ecosystem has even produced fabricated items, such as a phony OK! Magazine story alleging a celebrity sperm scandal involving Sandu, and another article citing a purported EU-sanctioned Russian foundation that accuses Sandu of running a child trafficking campaign via Ukraine. Reset Tech notes that Kremlin operatives are using AI and affordable software to generate quick, low-cost imagery for lookalike websites, undermining trust in information and complicating voters’ decision-making. “The Kremlin operatives are using AI, cheap, off-the-shelf software to create quick and dirty images for lookalike websites,” Scott said. “Not only does it bring false information to voters who are trying to consider very consequential issues in their country, but also over time it leads people to believe that nothing can be trusted.”

Reset Tech’s analysis links the Moldova operation to a broader Russian information-influence network often associated with Storm-1516, and its findings draw on research from Recorded Future’s Insikt Group and the Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which includes DFRLab, EU Disinfo Lab, Alliance4Europe, and Debunk.

Pro-Russian Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor has been accused of funding a substantial Russia-backed network of paid political ads on Facebook and YouTube ahead of the election. WatchDog, a Chisinau-based think tank, counted 1,505 advertisements placed on Meta platforms between April 30 and July 28 with an estimated budget of €45,000 ($53,000), in addition to hundreds of YouTube ads. The main narratives promoted across these platforms argued that PAS would rig the election, persecute the Orthodox Church, and impoverish Moldova.

Authorities have conducted raids in the run-up to the election tied to voter corruption, illegal party financing, and money laundering allegedly connected to Shor’s “criminal organization.” In a raid on Sept. 18, police detained one person and seized cash, laptops, and bank documents, saying suspects were receiving instructions via Telegram from “curators in the Russian Federation” on how to distribute and comment on disinformation videos on Facebook, TikTok, and Telegram. Shor has denied wrongdoing. “We know how to fight Russian propaganda (and) pro-Russian oligarchs,” said Andrei Rusu, a media monitoring expert at WatchDog. “But we need more support from our partners. … Words will not save our country from a pro-Russian regime if this election will be corrupted.”

The broader context remains stark: Moldova’s path to EU membership has been a central driver of political tension since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After applying for EU membership in 2022 and receiving candidate status, Moldova was permitted to begin EU accession negotiations last year. Moldovan officials have warned that Russia employs a hybrid warfare playbook — meddling in elections, disseminating disinformation, and financing pro-Russian parties — to derail the country’s European trajectory. Moscow has repeatedly denied meddling in Moldova. The government has vowed to continue countermeasures to safeguard the vote, but observers say the outcome could shape Moldova’s political direction for years to come.

The election is still days away, but the global attention on Moldova’s integrity and its European future has already intensified awareness of how AI-driven information campaigns can influence democracies, particularly in smaller states balancing security, sovereignty, and alliance commitments in a volatile regional landscape.