Ahead of Moldova’s presidential run-off, pro-Kremlin bots threatened ‘Ukraine 2.0’ and urged voters to ‘follow Georgia’

Pro-Kremlin bots on the Russian social media service VKontakte left approximately 400 comments about Moldova’s presidential run-off election this weekend, according to researchers from the project Botnadzor, which monitors online influence operations. Among other narratives, these accounts promoted the idea that the U.S. was interfering in the election and that Moldova would risk becoming “Ukraine 2.0” if incumbent candidate Maia Sandu won a second term (which she did).

Researchers from the bot-tracking project Botnadzor found that pro-Kremlin bots posted about 400 comments about the second round of Moldova’s presidential election this weekend. Verstka Media first reported on the group’s findings.

The main narrative spread by the bots was that the U.S. was interfering in Moldova’s election. For example, they left comments saying that Washington “has already marked all the ballot boxes for ballot stuffing” and that “there’s no country that the U.S. is trying to subjugate that doesn’t have election fraud.”

Moldova’s knife-edge election and E.U. referendum

“These elections could have been skipped entirely, because the result was predetermined; the U.S. never changes and always meddles in foreign elections,” one comment read.

The bots also warned of a “Ukraine 2.0” scenario for Moldova if pro-E.U. incumbent Maia Sandu won. To prevent this, the bots urged Moldovan voters to “follow the example of independent Georgia,” where they said the U.S. is “practically trying to stage another Maidan Revolution.”

Moldova’s presidential run-off was held on November 3, two weeks after both candidates failed to win an outright majority in the election’s first round. According to Moldova’s electoral commission, Maia Sandu won the second round with about 55 percent of the vote, beating Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former chief prosecutor backed by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists.