Putin’s “Soft Takeover” of Moldova? Not Quite Going According to Plan

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50.6% / 55 seats – Maia Sandu’s pro-European PAS party
24.19% / 26 seats – pro-Kremlin Patriotic Bloc of Igor Dodon (red star, hammer and sickle)
7.97% / 8 seats – Alternative Bloc (pro-Russian, led by Alexander Stoyanoglo)
6.2% / 6 seats – Democracy at Home party (advocating unification with Romania)
5.62% / 6 seats – Our Party (Renato Usatiy, “both here and there” — subtly promoting pro-Kremlin narratives)

Winning 55 seats out of 101 is a strong result. Sandu and her team worked tirelessly to achieve it over the past weeks and even days. As a political strategist, I would rate their performance as “excellent,” noting that nearly all possible “white” and “gray” campaign techniques were employed.

The pro-Russian “Moldova Mare” / “Great Moldova” party was barred from the elections but remained on the ballots, meaning that at least part of the pro-Russian electorate effectively wasted their votes (although pro-Kremlin politicians claim that such ballots were counted in favor of Sandu’s party, which is not entirely bad if true). Only two polling stations were opened in Moscow, both in the city center and literally next to each other, which did not stop Russian organizers from attempting a “carousel,” transporting voters by bus to polling stations in Belarus.

The bridge from Transnistria was blocked to buses “due to a report of mining,” physically cutting off a significant portion of the pro-Russian electorate from the polling stations. In contrast, in Romania, voters were transported to polling stations by organized buses. In Verona, they reportedly even managed to implement a “carousel” — apparently for pro-European voters.

“Mining” has generally become a convenient tool: it was applied to all polling stations for the Kremlin’s Transnistria supporters. At the same time, the addresses of polling stations for residents of the Transnistria Republic were simply changed, again “for security reasons.” Those who could not find the new addresses were blamed. Those who did find them often encountered a sudden shortage of ballots, sometimes three and a half hours before the end of voting, leaving late arrivals unable to vote. “Technical problems” also arose at polling stations in Gagauzia, rendering the voting process impossible in some areas.

As we can see, Sandu’s team consistently and carefully protected Moldova from the opening of a second front by Russia, leaving no point unchecked from the complete manual on “how to secure the maximum necessary votes while avoiding unnecessary ones.”

In conclusion: the Moldovan authorities, thank God, used every possible—and even impossible—technique, but achieved the result needed for both themselves and for us (it’s impossible to say which side benefited more). And yes, this is Putin’s loss. He poured substantial funds into this attempt at the political annexation of Moldova, following the model of Georgia. Although compared to the Russian budget, the amounts were modest, but necessary, given that Moldova is a small and poor country. Only 1.591 million citizens voted this time, with an average turnout of about 50%.

Even accounting for the fact that pro-Russian parties literally handed out money to voters (the role of the local “pro-Kremlin oligarch Ivanishvili” being played by pro-Kremlin oligarch Shor), the sums were negligible. In Moldova, $100 is a significant amount for buying a vote, yet for the Kremlin, a hundred or a few hundred million dollars is a trifle—hardly enough to create serious problems in the south. And yet, it still didn’t work.

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