Moldova's President Maia Sandu said the authorities have clear evidence of malign interference and "fraud of unprecedented proportions" at the vote on October 20. With the presidential elections now going into the second round, what can the Kremlin do within the next 10 days to influence the vote?
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00:00Moldova's president, Maja Sandu, said that authorities have clear evidence of Russian
00:09interference and, quote, fraud of unprecedented proportions at the vote on the 20th of October.
00:16But with the presidential elections now going into the second round, what can Russia do
00:20within the next 10 days to influence that vote?
00:25Moldovan authorities claim that there have been a few attempts by Russian and pro-Russian
00:29forces to influence the result of the vote and, consequently, to destabilize Moldova.
00:35The Institute for the Study of War reported that, according to the Moldovan police, around
00:39300 Moldovans learned about protest tactics at the training ground near Moscow.
00:46Kristina Howard, Russia researcher at the Institute for the Study of War, told Euronews
00:51that Moscow will keep trying to destabilize the society.
00:55We saw indicators that Russia was trying to launch protests in Moldova and turn those
01:00protests violent.
01:03Moscow may still try to use its proxies to foment violent protests in Moldova in the
01:08coming weeks.
01:10The Kremlin will very likely use its proxies in Moldova over the next two weeks to try
01:14to influence the second round of voting.
01:18Moscow is also not going to accept the results of the referendum easily and the Kremlin has
01:23already started to claim that the voting was not free and fair.
01:28One of the key elements of Russia's interference attempts was the pro-Russian breakaway area
01:33of Transnistria, especially when it comes to bribing, including its attempts to bribe
01:39the voters.
01:41Kremlin proxies in Moldova were bribing Moldovan voters with Russian money, but the Moldovans
01:45could only receive the cash through a complex series of bank transfers, including through
01:50banks in Transnistria.
01:52The Institute for the Study of War Experts assessed that Moldova in 2024 is very similar
01:58to Ukraine between 2014 and February 2022.
02:02And the Kremlin has enacted elements of its hybrid war playbook in both countries as part
02:08of its longstanding efforts to reshape the governance of Ukraine and Moldova.