Incumbent wins presidential runoff with 97% of votes counted, defeating Russia-leaning rival
www.theguardian.com
Officials in the capital of Chișinău believe that Moscow invested approximately $100m (£77.2m) before the first vote and had reportedly smuggled in some of the funds by “money mules” detained by police at the main airport while carrying bundles of €10,000 (£8,390) in cash.
Sandu’s team said it intensified efforts to prevent a repeat of what they described as a large-scale vote-buying scheme orchestrated by the Russian-backed fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor during the first round.
“Moldova has had a monumental task before it: just two weeks to stop a sprawling Kremlin-backed vote-buying scheme that proved effective in the twin vote on 20 October,” said Olga Rosca, a foreign policy adviser to Sandu.
Still, on Sunday, Sandu’s national security adviser, Stanislav Secrieru, wrote on X that they were “seeing massive interference by Russia in our electoral process … an effort with high potential to distort the outcome”.
“Cybersecurity agency reports the Central Election Commission’s voter education site was temporarily down this morning due to a DDoS attack,” Secrieru added.
Vlad gotta be fuming