On 20 October, Moldovans will head to the polls to elect a new president. Also on the ballot: the country’s future relations with the European Union. In anticipation of the dual vote, the Kremlin’s disinformation machine has sprung into high gear. Kremlin talking points have been churned out by Russian outlets and amplified by others, in Moldova and elsewhere. Their aim is to dissuade Moldovans from backing President Maia Sandu’s pro-EU course, by spreading fear about what the referendum and eventual membership in the Union would entail – allegedly, a loss of sovereignty and a threat to the country’s security.
While some outlets engaged in obvious outright disinformation, others were a little subtler, publishing factual reports on the referendum but quoting only opposition politicians who are fighting Moldova’s alignment with the EU such as former President Igor Dodon, fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, and the former governor of Gagauzia, Irina Vlah.
Moldova was granted EU candidate status in June 2022, in a bid by the EU to help it build resilience in a tough regional context marked by Russia’s neo-imperialist aspirations and activities. This ‘geopolitical’ motive was reinterpreted by the Kremlin’s disinformation machine as a ‘reward’ for Moldova joining the anti-Russia front with which the West is allegedly seeking to encircle Russia. For the last two years, pro-Kremlin outlets have sought to portray Moldova’s legitimate decisions concerning its EU path as ‘Russophobic’, part of the West’s ‘hybrid war’ against Russia.
Neutrality
One prominent disinformation claim advanced by Russian state-controlled and other pro-Kremlin outlets was that the country’s leadership was using the referendum as a sneaky way to cancel Moldova’s neutrality: the referendum would give it the power to amend the constitution and replace the principle of neutrality with the desire to join the EU. This alleged move would also pave the way for Moldova’s accession to NATO. According to this manipulative interpretation, it would directly threaten Moldova’s security.
In reality, a positive referendum outcome would not empower the government to cancel the constitutionally enshrined principle of neutrality at all. Rather, if voters answer positively to the given question, Moldovan constitution will be amended in order to include this stated desire of people for European integration. Other disinformation narratives advanced a condescending ‘concern’ about the loss of sovereignty that eventual EU membership allegedly implies. Since the EU law would take precedence over domestic legislation, the country would be forced to take a course that would run counter to its national interest.
‘Proxy war’
An even scarier prospect for the small country, squeezed between Ukraine and Romania: The West is seeking to turn it into a springboard for its ‘proxy war’ against Russia as it attempts to ‘encircle’ Russia. Or at least this is what pro-Kremlin narratives would have you believe. This, in turn, could trigger a regional escalation and Moldova’s ‘self-annihilation’ similar to Ukraine’s case. You read that right – in the Kremlin’s twisted worldview Ukraine forced Russia to launch a full-scale invasion in February 2022. Now, the West is trying to turn Moldova into ‘a second Ukraine’.
The signature on 21 May in Brussels of a Security and Defence Partnership between the EU and Moldova triggered another line of narratives concerning the EU’s supposedly nefarious designs. The Pact was taken as evidence that Moldova was being prepared for a possible war against Russia in Transnistria, given that the EU is allegedly already in a state of undeclared war with Russia through its sanctions policy and support for Ukraine. European countries will help the ‘Sandu regime’ rob the country and suppress freedom of speech, and set it on course for a military adventure, just as they did in Ukraine.
Previously, President Sandu had been accused of preparing her country for war with Russia – a war in which Moldova would be supported by NATO in the same way that Ukraine is being supported by the West. That is because, according to disinformation outlets, Sandu, like Volodymyr Zelenskyy, acts in the interests of the United States and the collective West – not of Moldova or Ukraine.
A fake accession process?
Another line taken by pro-Kremlin outlets is that Moldova’s EU accession process – just like that of Ukraine – is fake since the country stands no chance of meeting the conditions for joining any time soon. This, the Kremlin claims, is primarily due to the ‘thieving government’ with its allegedly rampant corruption, deeply uninterested in the reforms necessary for a true European future. As a result, the accession talks will drag on for ‘decades’ or ‘forever’. Brussels is aware of this, but it does not care, because the whole accession process is purely make-believe.
Of course, no-one has a crystal ball to divine the future, least of all the Kremlin, but while EU accession path is sure to arduous, EU enlargement is by no means a ‘make-believe’. Just ask any of the 13 nations that have walked that same path to join the EU in past two decades.
Denial of agency
In many of these narratives, ‘the West’ is behind everything Moldova does or doesn’t do: the country itself and its citizens have little to no agency. In fact, in case you didn’t know, the EU has already begun the ‘annexation’ of Ukraine and Moldova. (In another version of the same claim, Moldova’s EU accession is a covert operation for its annexation by Romania.)
In line with this denial of agency, we are also told that the West’s ‘puppet’ in Moldova, Maia Sandu, has turned the country into a ‘stronghold of Russophobia’. This ties in neatly with earlier disinformation cases claiming that Moldova gets rid of everything Russian, that President Sandu is attempting to forcibly ‘Romanise’ almost all spheres of life in Moldova, and that Moldova has lost its sovereignty and is now ruled by foreigners.
Sure, the Kremlin likes to tell tall tales about the long arm of the West and decry the ‘lost sovereignty’ every time an independent nation in Russia’s self-perceived, Cold War-style ‘sphere of influence’ exercises its inalienable right of charting its own democratic future. But the people of Moldova have already shown their mettle, their commitment to a European future recognized by the EU, and now, at this crucial junction will make their own informed and independent choices and not be deceived by the Kremlin.
Article and pictures first time published on the EUvsDisinfo web page. Prepared for publication by volunteers from the Res Publica - The Center for Civil Resistance.
