The Kremlin fails to stop pro-Europeans in Moldova and raises the specter of electoral fraud.

MoscowA very hard setback for Vladimir Putin, who He was confident that the pro-Russian blog would snatch an absolute majority from the pro-European forces in the Moldovan parliamentary elections.The overwhelming victory of President Maia Sandu's Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), with 50% of the votes and the collapse of the Patriotic Bloc, which failed to secure even 25%, pave the way for Moldovans toward the EU and shatter one of the Kremlin's last hopes of keeping the country within its sphere of influence.

The pro-Russian opposition was quick to challenge the vote. Its leaders do not recognize the results because they claim that "hundreds of violations and deviations" occurred during the process. The strongman of the Patriotic Bloc, socialist Igor Dodon, had called on opposition supporters to demonstrate against alleged electoral fraud in front of the Parliament this Monday at noon, but the rally barely gathered a few dozen people and lasted less than twenty minutes.

The crux of electoral manipulation, according to Dodon, is the vote of the Moldovan diaspora abroad, key to the victory of the PAS. The pro-European parties obtained more than 78% of the overseas vote, while the pro-Russian parties only 5%. The Patriotic Bloc complains that in Russia only two polling stations were open for half a million Moldovans, while in Italy, for example, 73 were opened for 100,000. They also denounce that in Transnistria, a self-proclaimed republic in eastern Moldova with a Russian-speaking majority that does not participate in the elections, the number of polling stations for Moldovan citizens was also significantly reduced and roads were blocked.

The Kremlin's Insinuations

The Kremlin also criticizes the fact that "hundreds of thousands of Moldovans were deprived of the opportunity to vote in Russia" and describes the polling stations set up as "insufficient." Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has sought to cede leadership of the protests to pro-Russian Moldovan politicians so as not to make "unfounded assessments," but at the same time has given credence to the "electoral violations" denounced by the opposition.

Russian pro-government media have been rife with denouncing, in recent hours, the disqualification of six pro-Russian parties, which were unable to participate in the elections, one of them being removed while election day was already underway. Three of these parties were under the direct umbrella of oligarch Ilan Shor, who pulls the strings of the opposition from Moscow, where he has fled to avoid a fifteen-year prison sentence. This Monday, he was interviewed on Russian state television, where he stated that he would take the election results to international bodies.

Brussels has not taken note of these vetoes, often motivated by alleged Russian funding of the parties, although carried out with dubious procedural guarantees. Instead, it has limited itself to celebrating the victory of Sandu's party and the Moldovans' "clear yes" to a "European future." According to the highest representative of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, this has been achieved "despite massive Russian efforts to spread disinformation and buy votes."

Moscow's plan fails.

The Moldovan government and various media outlets had warned of several Kremlin-orchestrated plans to try to interfere in Sunday's elections. During election day itself, thousands of cyberattacks against the Moldovan Election Commission were repelled, and warnings were raised about the possibility of unrest, which ultimately did not take place.

Putin had placed his trust in one of the Kremlin's rising stars, Sergei Kirienko, to curb the pro-European party. This veteran politician is accumulating considerable power among the Russian president's acolytes and had recently taken control of the department that deals with pro-Russian forces in countries in the former Soviet Union. The elections in Moldova were his first real test.

The resounding defeat of the Patriotic Bloc can therefore be considered a very serious setback for the Kremlin and its renewed efforts to establish a buffer zone in Moldova to test hybrid warfare tactics. In addition to failing to prevent one of the last territories in its former orbit that had not yet opted for either bloc from falling into the European Union, it will also fail to create a new source of tension in southern Ukraine.