Russian Disinformation Campaign Targets Moldova’s Pro-EU Elections

With Moldova’s nationwide elections approaching on September 28, 2025, researchers at Silent Push have uncovered a Russian-linked disinformation campaign designed to sway public opinion and weaken the country’s pro-European trajectory. The campaign has been attributed to the long-running influence group known as Storm-1679 (a.k.a. Matryoshka), which has previously targeted global events including the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Silent Push analysts discovered a unique technical fingerprint across Moldovan disinformation websites launched in 2025. The report explains, “Our analysts linked the campaign to a separate, earlier Russian influence campaign and disinformation effort from 2022 through a unique technical fingerprint, along with other details.”

This fingerprint pointed directly to absatz[.]media, a propaganda outlet registered in Russia in 2022 and overseen by Mikhail Sergeyevich Shakhnazarov, an editor sanctioned in Ukraine for supporting Russian disinformation.

The Moldovan disinformation domains were all hosted on dedicated IP addresses, a telltale sign of common ownership. Silent Push notes, “The 2025 Moldovan disinformation websites have no clear ownership or declared authors, indicating the operators are trying to hide their involvement and possible ties to the campaign.”

By reusing code, hosting setups, and fingerprints first observed in 2022, the campaign shows continuity between Russian disinformation infrastructure and current election interference in Moldova.

A review of content on Absatz revealed a consistent pattern of disinformation designed to discredit Moldova’s leadership and sow distrust in democratic institutions. According to the researchers, “When searching for the Russian word for Moldova (‘Молдова’) on Absatz… there are dozens of clear disinformation articles.”

Examples include claims such as “Police forcibly dispersed a peaceful protest in Chisinau” and “The Central Election Commission of Moldova did not allow the bloc ‘Victory’ to participate in the parliamentary elections” — narratives clearly aimed at portraying the government as authoritarian and illegitimate.

The Silent Push team outlined three scenarios explaining the strong overlap:

1. The Moldovan campaign developers reused small portions of Absatz code.
2. A shared developer reused specific components across both projects.
3. Absatz itself is directly managing the Moldovan disinformation network.

Given the infrastructure ties, fingerprint consistency, and editorial connections, researchers lean toward scenarios two or three, suggesting active Russian involvement in the election influence effort.

Silent Push also identified waves of low-quality social media accounts amplifying Absatz content across Twitter (X), Facebook, and TikTok, a common tactic in Russian disinformation campaigns to spread propaganda narratives more widely.

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