Algorithm of Ruschia’s election interference
Fake nationalist influencer networks on Telegram, TikTok, Facebook. Bribing voters. Using priests. Paramilitary training. Fake demonstrations. Bomb hoaxes. Compromising genuine election observers.
In each country Ruschia uses a different menu of activities. This report from Moldovan intelligence service reveals methods used in Moldova to hack its EU referendum:
“The main platforms used were the EVRAZIA entity and the so-called "victory" block; the agents of influence were and remain the organized criminal group "Sor", …
tools used include:
clandestine financing by foreign subversive centers,
disinformation,
corruption,
illegal financing of electoral campaigns,
destabilization attempts,
sabotage actions and others.
Russian interference was exerted on multiple vectors, including:
a) amplification of radical tendencies, of a separatist-autonomist nature;
b) propaganda and disinformation;
c) exploitation of the ecclesiastical factor;
d ) Russian interference in the electoral process in the Republic of Moldova;
e ) subversive operations carried out by the Russian special services;
f) exploiting elements of organized crime;
g) energy blackmail…
… 2024, the No. 1 target of the Operational Center in Moscow becomes compromising Moldova’s EU membership referendum.
The command/coordination center of the external interference operation, which according to its construction represents a pyramid scheme, had the following organizational chart:
- in the city Moscow: the coordinating staff with distinct departments was established
responsible for political technologies, organization, finance and logistics;
- in the city Chisinau: the executive staff was established - responsible for legal aspects, public relations, coordination of work with young people, organization and logistics, but also the training of speakers in electoral meetings.
Within it, more than 100 "speakers" distributed by territorial organizations were trained.
- Territorial cells 119. Each territorial organisation had the objective of recruiting activists.
The objective set per district was 1500 people. (within a district of the Republic of Moldova, 2-3 territorial cells were active).
- Primary cells - over 1900.
- Activists - 33,000 activists.
Activists had the objective of recruiting and registering 5-10 people who will b e potential mobilized voters in exchange for a sum of money for a candidate/candidates.
Activists were remunerated 2000 lei per month, and for the month of October - 3000 lei per activist.
- Supporters - 84,000 people…
Under the guise of certain projects, "EVRAZIA" financed the transportation
citizens of the Republic of Moldova (especially members and sympathizers of the so-called "victory" structures) in Moscow where they were trained about different ways of activity as well as ideologization.
The training involved political instructors/experts originating from the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus and Central Asian states.
Among the speakers at these events, the involvement of the youth organization of the ruling party in Russia, as well as Russian propagandists and ideologues, was noticed.
The projects, managed by the "EVRAZIA" NGO, under the cover of which the visits of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova to the Russian Federation were organized were:
"Know Russia"/, Узнай Россию" organization of excursions;
- = The land of childhood"/"Территория детства " - participation of young people (between 14 - 16 years old) at rest camps in Russia, and Ukraine (Crimea); "Eurasia - the continent of opportunities"
- "Ambassador of the friendship of the peoples"/ "Ambassador EURAZIA" of - BUILDING public diplomacy
During the trips to Moscow, training seminars were organized for the young people in the social-political field, electoral technologies, including destabilization techniques (point C).
Some of the members are trained with the aim of participating, as "Ambassadors of Eurasia", in a campaign to inform the electorate of the Republic of Moldova regarding the benefits of the Republic of Moldova's collaboration with…
…Ruschia/Eurasian Union and the negative consequences of European integration.
The involvement of the ecclesiastical component.
On this dimension, Ruschia’s interference activities were manifested through:
1. Travels in the Russian Federation (RF) (with the financial support of RF entities) and the holding of local events ("Way of the Cross/Peace March").
- In the months of August and September 2024, about 500 priests and parishioners of the Church Orthodox from Moldova moved to Moscow in a.n. "pilgrimages".
The purpose of the trips was to convince the clerics to get involved in influencing the presidential elections and the referendum.
Arriving in Moscow, the clerics were proposed to sign a contract with "EVRAZIA" to be given a bank card with the Russian payment system "Mir" in order to receive help from the Russian Patriarchate.
Upon their return, they were promised remuneration from EVRAZIA" in the amount of 1000 USD.
2. Propagation of messages with electoral connotations aimed at supporting electoral candidates in the presidential elections and distributing anti-EU messages/rhetoric
During 2024, the organized criminal group (SOR) was in a permanent process of identifying the camouflaged mechanisms for introducing money sources into the country, the following being documented:
Organized transportation of cash from RF to Republic of Moldova by so-called porters and associated persons (by air).
This method is being investigated by the Police, the Prosecutor's Office and the Customs Service.
Money transfers from Russia operated through the bank accounts of "PROMSVYAZBANK" (under international sanctions) - the Russian MIR payment system, with the transfer of amounts through payment platforms in Uzbekistan; P2P transfers through payment platforms and banks in Central Asia, money remittance systems, such as: "Zolotaya Korona"
Since the launch of the "EVRAZIA" platform in Moscow, increased attention has been paid to the regions of the Republic of Moldova led by people affiliated with llan SOR - UTA Gagauzia, Taraclia and Orhei.
Their administrations have signed trilateral contracts WITH "EVRAZIA" and "PROMSVYAZBANK" for receiving financial sources, actually being a way to camouflage illegal financing and electoral corruption.
The beneficiaries had bank accounts at "PROMSVYAZBANK", which were opened without physical presence, personal data (passports) being illegally collected centrally by the SOR group and sheds in Moscow.
From the position of the organization, "grants for young people" and "contracts of employment" of citizens of the Republic of Moldova…
Between June 19-24, 115 young people from the Republic of Moldova mobilized under the auspices of the a.n. block., Victorie" (under the cover of the EVRAZIA projects), were trained on a training ground in Moscow on the procedures, methods and techniques of organization and behaviour during protest actions.
- Police provocation tactics; the "intelligent" confrontation of police cordons;
- Ways of dispossessing weapons/special equipment of the public order maintenance forces;
- Methods and tactics of using pyrotechnic and smoke devices;
- Methods of throwing improvised "projectiles" (stones, eggs, balloons with paint),
- Release of detained accomplices and methods of protection of protest leaders;
- Tools to "neutralize" plainclothes police officers, under the pretext that they are "provocative".
NOTE: Among the trainers who trained the young people of the Republic of Moldova on how to implement the technologies for organizing street destabilization, there were also members of the organization "Молодая Гвардия Единой России ".
Some of the young people trained in the camps in Moscow were involved in the realization destabilizing measures from September:
• A group of people threw stones at the windows and splashed paint on the entrance to "Teleradio Moldova".
• A group of people threw stones at the windows and splashed paint on the entrance to Supreme court.
• A group of people affiliated with a.n. block,, victory" they threw eggs and splashed with paint entrance to the CEC headquarters.
• A group of people originally from UTAG splashed paint on the entrance to the Ministry of Labor headquarters.
• The same two people splashed paint on the entrance to the Government headquarters.
They communicated that they were recruited to vandalize the buildings for 5000 Euros.
It was established that the people involved in the last two actions, between 20-24.09.2024, were in Moscow, where together with 20 other young people also originating from UTAG, they were trained at a training ground outside the city of Moscow, at the protest party compartment.
* Some of the young people chosen to go to Moscow were selected for more advanced training in guerrilla camps held in Bosnia and Herzegovina (a camp in the forest near the city of Banja Luka), where they were trained as provocateurs who would organize protests and participate in violent, radical and extremist actions:
-drone operators;
- the psychology of protesting masses;
- tactics for penetrating police cordons;
- blinding police collaborators with "spray" or "laser" paint;
- psychology lessons on recruitment methods, identifying the root cause of independence seeking activism;
- preparation of incendiary objects;
- exam in real conditions in the city.
… in 2023 in the organization of challenges in France ("Star of David", "Red Coffins") and Germany (the raising of the Ukrainian flag during a football match football with the inscription "Give us elections back"…
Fake Nationalist trolls, Compromising genuine election observers:
Ruschia uses the rhetoric of nationalism in each of the states it is secretly operating inside to manipulate ‘nationalists’ into subjecting their country to Ruschia.
Moldovan secret service declassified analysis of Ruschia’s election interference methods:
“…to motivate the summoning/attraction of Moldovan citizens to Moscow, "Moldovan" organizations were created on the territory of Russia.
One of these organizations is the Moldovan Cultural-Educational Center, which ostensibly was created to promote the culture and national values of the Republic of Moldova on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, but de facto it is concerned with the consolidation of the Moldovan diaspora around the organized criminal group SOR.
NOTE: The center was also involved in electoral fraud in the context of the presidential elections of the Republic of Moldova on October 20, 2024.
For the voters transported to the polling station in Moscow, free Vouchers were prepared at a cafe near the polling station located on str. Neglinnaia 15, Moscow.
In addition, in the respective location, citizens were offered the opportunity to apply for the "Citizen Card of the Republic of Moldova in the Russian Federation" propaganda program.
The analysis of the trend from 2020 to 2024 - shows the rise in the number of international observers involved in monitoring the elections on the territory of the Republic of Moldova.
The security checks carried out by the Moldovan intelligence service are relevant in the case of some pseudo-observers -
indices not compliant with the status of observers, such as:
a. the profile elucidates the membership of military structures in Russian Federation;
b. membership and/or connections to the Russian special services.
Following the Moldova’s SIS opinion, accreditation was refused and/or withdrawn for 8 persons who applied for accreditation under the auspices of international organizations (OSCE / BIDO).
We would like to note that during the previous elections, the Service also notified officers connected to the Russian special services, accredited on the OSCE/BIDO line.
With reference to the false bomb alerts, we mention that they took place during the hours of maximum crowding at the polling stations.
Bomb alerts were reported in: Romania (Bucharest, Brasov), Germany (Frankfurt,Kaiserslautern), Great Britain (Liverpool, Northamptom).
Immediately, the specialized services from the respective states checked the polling stations according to the protocol and declared the alarms false.
The documentation conducted at that time elucidated that the de facto purpose of the accredited officers was to score and target other accredited international observers at the election and did not directly target hostile activities in relation to the Republic of Moldova.
Another element of interest is the unsanctioned appearance in the vicinity of the polling stations of people filming/live streaming the entrances to the polling stations. According to the data, the persons concerned were allegedly recruited online for remuneration, and were trained. Such cases were reported for example in Italy and Estonia.
Election Day Propaganda and Misinformation
During the days of the elections, RT (Russia Today correspondent Konstantin PRIDYBAYLO made reports around the voters at the polling stations in Moscow (round 1) and at the polling station in Minsk (round 2).
His publications on the Telegram channel were operatively taken over by the "Russia Today" press agency subject to international sanctions for disinformation activities, influence operations, military acquisitions, but also influencing the elections…
► The analysis of the basic narratives promoted through the sponsored publications of the "SOR" project establishes the following target topics:
1. EU’s interference Interferences in Moldova’s sovereignty, electoral processes (anti-government attitudes and civil disobedience)
2. Launching anti-Western, anti-EU, anti-referendum messages
3. Promotion of the image of the Russian Federation / Eurasian Economic Union
4. Fueling the fear of war versus the militarization of the Republic of Moldova
5. Social and political projects of Ilan ŞOR versus the socio-economic degradation of the Republic of Moldova and the denigration of state institutions and legally elected power.
At the same time, the Service also noted the rise of the Russian factor in the exploitation of informational influence instruments, implicitly the financing of some informational projects from the Republic of Moldova affiliated to the "ŞOR" group.
Example: the "SOSEDI" project (managed by Dumitru BUIMISTRU)
A new tactical element applied by cyber actors (affiliated to F. Russian interests), was the creation of web domains that mostly mimic governmental and non-governmental web resources (mec-gov.md, moldova-mediu.md, eupm-moldova.md, moldova-social.com, parlament-moldova.com, etc.)
These, in turn, were used to distribute disinformation (narratives denigrating European values and inducing panic in society) through the mass transmission of electronic messages (emails).
The Service's investigations determined that all domain registrations were made from IP addresses belonging to the ProtonVPN service, and payments were made through the Russian Federation's WebMoney payment system (using the compromised credentials of FR residents).
On the subject, the Service intervened in the address of STISC and the NameCheap registrar to block the respective domains.
That campaign is currently under investigation…”
Been going on since 2015 (that we know of). Half the country seems to be somewhat ok with it, which in itself is a big win for Mother Russia. Maybe we can’t stop this, but if they can do it to us, we can do it to them. In fact, we probably are.
Trumpomuskovian FRAUD:
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”
- Frederick Douglass, 1857.
https://www.pastebin.com/KP4nmD5Y