Russian Propaganda Aims to Manufacture a Crisis in Moldova

Executive Summary:

• Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and siloviki-linked Telegram channels are promoting disinformation of a purported plan for a European “occupation” of Transnistria and subsequent attack on Russian forces in the region, in what appears to be a coordinated campaign.
• These channels are aiming to create a narrative of Russia as a victim of Western aggression and a defender of human rights—a pretext Moscow has used in the past to justify military escalation in Georgia and Ukraine.
• The current Russian narratives of a military threat stemming from Moldova are integrated into a broader ecosystem of disinformation and economic coercion in the country in an attempt to influence the September 28 parliamentary elections toward parties favorable to Russia.

On September 23, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) published a press release titled “Europe Prepares to Occupy Moldova.” In the statement, the SVR claims to have received information about a plan from Brussels to keep Moldova on a pro-EU path at any cost, including the “introduction of troops and the occupation of the country” (SVR, September 23). According to the SVR, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces are already gathering in Romania and Odesa in an attempt to intimidate and potentially invade Transnistria—the Russia-backed breakaway state in Moldova’s east—around two dates—the September 28 Moldovan parliamentary elections and Transnistria’s Supreme Soviet elections on November 30. While the SVR’s claims lack evidence, the goal is not to present credible information. Instead, Moscow aims to instill fear and uncertainty in Moldova and preemptively delegitimize the country’s elections by claiming that the European Union is preparing a “gross falsification of the voting results.” More concerning, however, is the potential for Russia to use these claims as a pretext for its own incursion into Transnistria, a tactic Moscow has used before in Georgia and Ukraine.

In addition to the SVR, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels, including “Rybar,” “Dva Mayora,” and “Alex Parker Wagner,” have spread a similar message over the past few weeks, suggesting a coordinated campaign. While these channels masquerade as independent military analysis outlets, they have been linked to the Russian Ministry of Defense and other siloviki networks (Detector Media, November 1, 2024; DFR Lab, September 23; EKStrategies, accessed September 24). Their amplification of the same narrative can be interpreted as a sign of a top-level directive, and the Telegram channels’ claims have been even more specific than those of the SVR.

On September 12, the channel Rybar posted a message titled, “[Moldovan President Maia] Sandu was persuaded in London,” claiming that U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer convinced Sandu during her visit to the United Kingdom to sanction a joint operation between Ukrainian and U.K. special forces against the Russian soldiers stationed in Transnistria planned for the spring of 2026 (Telegram/Rybar, September 12). Furthermore, on September 19, the channels Rybar and Dva Mayora cross-posted a message titled “Transnistria is under attack,” in which they claim that, in addition to the Ukrainian and U.K. forces, Romania may also send units to Transnistria after Moldova’s elections on Sunday (Telegram/Rybar, September 19; Telegram/dva_majors, September 19).

On September 24 at the UN General Assembly in New York City, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Western allies to intensify their support for Moldova amid growing Russian interference, arguing that bolstering Moldova is a crucial step for Europe’s overall stability and development (President of Ukraine, September 24). After Zelenskyy’s statement, the channel Alex Parker Wager posted a message saying that “Zelenskyy announced at the UN a military operation in Moldova to destroy Transnistria” (Telegram/apwagner, September 24).

The statements from the SVR and the Telegram posts all conclude with similar declarations that the purported European operations will plunge Moldova into a full-scale conflict with Russia, providing further evidence of a coordinated effort. For instance, the SVR asserts that the European force is planning to “create a pretext” to attack Russian soldiers in Transnistria, while the Telegram posts often similarly end with statements on Moldova’s plan to begin an “open military conflict against Russia” (Telegram/Rybar, September 12, 15, 19, 19;  Telegram/dva_majors, September 19, 23; Telegram/apwagner, September 23, 24; SVR, September 23).

These accusations all serve to create a narrative of Russia as a victim of Western aggression and defender of human rights—a narrative Moscow has used in the past to justify military escalation. In August  2008, then-Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin falsely accused Georgia of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” in the breakaway region of South Ossetia (Vzglyad, August 9, 2008). Russia then launched a full-scale land, air, and sea invasion of Georgia, including in territory beyond South Ossetia. It framed this massive military operation not as an invasion of a sovereign country, but as a defensive “peace enforcement” operation necessary to protect its peacekeepers and Russian citizens (RBC, August 9, 2008). In 2014, Putin justified Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea by falsely alleging human rights abuses of Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Crimea, and claiming that NATO posed a threat to Russia by potentially placing its navy “right there in this city of Russian military glory, and this would create not an illusory but a perfectly real threat to the whole of southern Russia” (President of Russia, March 18, 2014; Kuzio, “Crimea: Where Russia’s War Started and Where Ukraine Will Win,” July 8, 2024). In the lead-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow again falsely accused Ukraine of committing “genocide” against Russian speakers in the Donbas region, and justified its invasion on the baseless grounds of the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine (RBC-Ukraine, February 15, 2022; President of Russia, February 24, 2022).

The current Russian narratives of a military threat stemming from Moldova are integrated into a broader ecosystem of disinformation and economic coercion in the country. According to the DFR Lab, Russia has deployed a suite of large-scale, technologically advanced influence campaigns against Moldova since May 2024. These campaigns utilize vast networks of inauthentic accounts, AI-generated content, and “cloned” websites that mimic legitimate Western media outlets to spread propaganda and overwhelm fact-checkers in an effort to manipulate Moldovan public opinion (DFR Lab, March 6). Russia has similarly used its control over energy supplies as a tool of geopolitical coercion against Moldova. At the beginning of 2025, Russia’s state-controlled energy corporation, Gazprom, ceased delivering gas to Moldova, plunging the country into a severe energy crisis in a move that seemed designed to inflict maximum economic pain, stoke widespread anger against the pro-Western government, and demonstrate the supposed costs of defying Moscow (Telegram/gazprom; DW, December 28, 2024; Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, January 6). In response, Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean characterized this move as an example of how “Russia uses energy as a political weapon” (Moldova1, December 28, 2024).

Moscow’s repeated attempts over the past few years to destabilize Moldova and move it back into Russia’s sphere of influence have thus far been unsuccessful (see EDM, April 25, 29, November 6, 2024; July 9, August 1). The recent coordinated propaganda campaign likely represents a last-minute effort to sway Moldovan public opinion rather than confirmation of an imminent military escalation, as Russia’s army and economy are both already overburdened by its war against Ukraine (see EDM, October 10, 2024, May 8, 29). On September 22, the day before the SVR’s press release, Bloomberg reported on internal Russian documents it had received, confirming Moscow’s plan to influence Moldova’s parliamentary elections in favor of parties suitable to Russia, with the ultimate goal of removing Sandu from power. These plans include recruiting Moldovan voters abroad to game turnout, staging street protests to intimidate officials, flooding social platforms with coordinated disinformation, and applying cyber pressure on election infrastructure and adversary campaigns (Bloomberg, September 22). According to Meduza, these plans were finalized in late spring and coordinated directly by the Kremlin (Meduza, September 22). The Kremlin likely views the upcoming parliamentary elections as one of the few remaining opportunities to influence Moldova’s future, and appears to be willing to use any means necessary to achieve this goal.