A Russian Non-Profit Interferes in Moldova’s EU Referendum — And Builds an Anti-Western Influence Machine

The sun is shining on the Moscow River, and the vibes are good. One after another, posing in front of a thousand-ton monument to Peter the Great, smiling young visitors from Moldova gush to the camera about their trip to the Russian capital.

“I just went completely nuts over the VDNKh [exhibition center]," says Vitaly. "I’ve always dreamed of getting to know the culture and history of Russia.”

“My name is Mikhail, and I’m from Moldova,” says a bearded young man in a backwards baseball cap. “During my time in Moscow, I liked the Kremlin the most. You know why? Because this is another goal we achieved thanks to Evrazia.”

Evrazia, which means “Eurasia,” is the Russian non-profit whose Telegram account posted this upbeat video. The organization’s website says it’s dedicated to “strengthening mutually beneficial integrational processes in the post-Soviet space.” And the cheerful sponsored trip to Moscow is just one of its many, many projects.

Though it was founded just six months ago, Evrazia’s frequent Telegram posts attest to the dizzying pace of its activity: “Evrazia marks Astronomy Day in Armenia.” “Evrazia has sent Kyrgyzstan 100 school buses.” “Evrazia was at the international cultural forum in St. Petersburg!”

But Evrazia is not just a feel-good effort to cultivate international friendship. Nor is it simply a way to promote Russian “soft power.”

Reporters from CU SENS, an independent Moldovan outlet and OCCRP partner, have spent weeks investigating the organization. They found that Evrazia is at once an anti-Western propaganda vehicle, an alleged conduit for illegal financial flows amounting to tens of millions of dollars, and an election interference instrument aiming to sway an upcoming vote on whether Moldova should join the European Union.

In fact, the “autonomous non-commercial organization” is a key component of a relentless pro-Kremlin influence effort led by fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor.

At home, Shor is notorious for his role in masterminding the theft of a billion dollars — more than ten percent of Moldova’s annual GDP — from three of the country’s banks in 2014. But the prison term he was handed in absentia has failed to dim his ambitions. In recent years, the 37-year-old has become the highest-profile political avatar for Moldovans who yearn to see the country more closely aligned with Moscow.

From Russia, he has pressed on with an all-out campaign to discredit Moldova’s pro-Western president and get the country to turn its back on Europe.

That campaign has now gone into overdrive. Earlier this month, Moldovan police and prosecutors announced that some 130,000 citizens had received a total of $15 million from Shor in exchange for voting “no,” or helping persuade others to do so, in a referendum set to take place this Sunday on joining the European Union.

The payments, the police say, were made illegally through a sanctioned Russian bank — which received the funds from Evrazia. Organized through Telegram, the payments ranged from the equivalent of $50 per month for “supporters” to over $2,500 per month for “leaders” in the anti-EU campaign.

But despite Evrazia’s ties to the Kremlin — its board chair Alyona Arshinova is not only a legislator in the Russian Duma, but the vice president of the ruling United Russia faction — the organization is strikingly open about how it is pumping money into Moldova.

“Our scale is much bigger, all these numbers are understated,” Shor bragged in a Telegram post after police and prosecutors aired their accusations. “You’re counting like preschoolers.”

In another public message posted a few days later, he insisted that Evrazia’s activity was legal because it was simply hiring people and paying them “salaries” for “explaining to people the advantages of the Eurasian economic space.”

Nicolae Panfil, a Moldovan election monitoring specialist with the Promo-LEX Association, described Shor’s activity as an assault on the integrity of the Moldovan state: “What we are observing at the moment is an abrupt, direct involvement in an electoral campaign in the Republic of Moldova of a foreign state, of money from the Russian Federation, which is a very, very serious violation.”

The October 20 referendum, which takes place on the same day as a presidential election, is widely seen as a pivotal moment for Moldova, which has swayed between pro-Russian and pro-Western governments. 

President Maia Sandu, a strong proponent of integration into the European Union, says that a yes vote would prevent future governments from derailing Moldova’s current pro-European trajectory. She has also warned, repeatedly, of the destabilizing effect of Russian propaganda aimed at her country.

Though Moldovan authorities have carried out repeated raids, arrests, and confiscations, they concede to being overwhelmed by the scale of Shor’s efforts.

“Unfortunately, at the current stage, legal and law enforcement bodies … are not fully managing to fulfill their duties related to the investigation of this phenomenon,” said Arcadie Catlabuga, head of the National Investigation Inspectorate of the Moldovan police. “I’m talking about hundreds and thousands of crimes. We just can’t do it.”

Last Friday, Telegram blocked channels belonging to Evrazia, Shor, and several related Moldovan politicians because they “violated local laws.” 

But the money-for-votes scheme is just one of the Russian organization’s many ventures.

Evrazia has also found other ways to funnel money to Moldova. It provides regular “humanitarian assistance” to tens of thousands of pensioners in several regions. It offers grants of up to three million rubles ($31,000) to activists who propose ways to help build “friendly relations between the peoples of the post-Soviet countries.” And it has promised an impressive $250 million for unspecified Moldovan infrastructure projects.

Evrazia is also working to enlist young people in a broader ideological mission. The trips it offers to Moscow, and not only to Moldovans, are just part of a larger effort to build an international network of young supporters. At the center of it all is a project to promote the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as an alternative to the West: Not just as an economic space, but as a distinct civilization founded on traditional values and united by a common history tied to Moscow.

A representative of Evrazia, and Ilan Shor himself, did not respond to requests for comment.

Shor's Plan for Victory

Though Moldovan authorities openly name Ilan Shor as the man behind Evrazia, the precise nature of his involvement is difficult to pin down.

He is mentioned on the organization’s website only as a “politician” and is not listed as a member of its governing board. And though Evrazia’s public statements sometimes refer to him as a member of its board of trustees, he is also often described as “reaching agreements” with the organization, which may be meant to imply some degree of separation.

On paper, Evrazia’s director is Nelli Parutenko, a 62-year-old woman who has spent years working for Shor and who has been indicted in Moldova for allegedly playing a role in his former political party’s receipt of illegal financing.

But whatever the specific arrangements, there is no question that Evrazia is a part of Shor’s political project. It was founded in April, just a few weeks before Shor created a new political grouping, the Victory Bloc, to unify Moldova’s pro-Kremlin political parties under his banner.

In June, Evrazia received prominent billing at a Moscow gathering of the Victory Bloc, where it was celebrated as a key instrument in the battle against the European Union.

In a speech that closed the event, Shor repeated his usual apocalyptic message: Moldova, he said, was in the grip of a pro-Western dictatorship that brooked no opposition and no dissent. The path into Europe was a dead end, and the EU referendum would be a watershed moment. “We have to roll up our sleeves and fight,” Shor said, “because after October 20 we will have either darkness or sunrise.”

Then he announced a new initiative: “We have reached an agreement with the Evrazia non-profit that 50,000 Eurasian ambassadors will head to Moldova,” he said. “They must convey to every citizen … what the Eurasian Union really is, and what the European Union really is.”

“They will lead the campaign, and we will lead the battle. And we will win.”

Meanwhile, Evrazia had already racked up some achievements. Among the speakers at the Moscow event was the chair of the organization’s board, the Russian legislator Arshinova.

“Evrazia is an organization that been actively working for a month, and already 400 young people have come to Russia as part of various programs,” she said. “But our goal is for Russian youth also to come to these countries, including Moldova.” She cast the work in civilizational terms: “Evrazia is doing everything possible to help our president, Vladimir Putin, revive our big Eurasian family.”

‘A Multipolar World is Rising’

That message was even more explicit at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, where Evrazia hosted a panel discussion about the value of the EAEU the previous month.

Among the speakers — aside from Shor, of course — was Alexander Dugin, an arch-conservative nationalist philosopher whose ideas are said to have influenced Vladimir Putin.

He began his remarks by praising the state of affairs in Belarus, already an EAEU member, where President Lukashenko has ruthlessly suppressed mass protests against falsified elections and locked away hundreds of political prisoners.

“The president of Belarus is brilliant, everything is going great there, and we understand each other perfectly,” Dugin said. “But in some other cases, we still have to explain.”

In a brief, eloquent speech, Dugin made the case for smaller countries like Moldova to align themselves with Russia by joining the EAEU.

“It is a shame, of course, that we put this idiotic word ‘economic’ in the name of our Eurasian Union,” he said. “It should simply be the Eurasian Union, a union of fraternal peoples who are united not around the past, but around common civilizational values and a way of life.”

The West, he said, was in decline: “a wounded dragon — maybe deathly wounded, but still very dangerous.” But “a multipolar world is rising,” he continued, “and Russia is part of that emerging world order, to which, of course, the future belongs. And that’s why, when they choose Russia — our fraternal countries of the post-Soviet space, our friends, our relatives, those who think like us — they are choosing a dignified future, they are choosing sovereignty, freedom, and development.”

Visibly awed by Dugin’s erudition, his co-panelists hurried to agree. 

Evrazia head Arshinova, who moderated the discussion, gushed that listening to Dugin reminded her of her student days. “I think, based on your ideological platform, we will really be able to accomplish a lot,” she said, lamenting that the West was better positioned to sell itself and that it was time to catch up. “The West … knows how to sell a candy wrapper without the candy. We have the candy, but we don’t have the wrapper.”

Next up was Shor, who began on a respectful and somber note. “You said everything very correctly, it was really very interesting, and you said it very deeply,” he said to Dugin. “But we’ve lost this fight, at least on the battlefield of Moldova.”

Like other countries, he lamented, Moldova had sold itself for Western money. Apologizing for his “simple language,” he said the answer was to package the EAEU as an attractive “product” that could be offered to the public.

'Get to Know Russia'

If the EAEU will be a product, Evrazia is already working on the attractive packaging.

Many of the 400 visitors Arshinova mentioned at the Moscow forum came to the city as part of the organization’s ‘Get to Know Russia’ program — the same initiative for which Vitaly and Mikhail recorded their upbeat videos by the Moscow River.

On Instagram, the Russian hashtag #GettoKnowRussia2024 yields a smattering of well-produced video clips and attractive photos of the happy participants.

Many have no overt political content: “My childhood dream was to be an actress,” wrote a young Moldovan woman named Polina. “Having come to Moscow thanks to [Evrazia], my dream seems to be coming nearer and I’m starting to believe in it! 🥹🥹❤️ Thank you for showing me the real, mighty, strong Russia!”

But the trips clearly have an ideological component. As reported by RFE/RL, participants are asked to deepen their involvement with Evrazia by doing things like enrolling in the organization’s media school or becoming an “ambassador.”

In Moldova, reporters found that several participants had become involved in anti-EU activism. 

Among them was Mikhail, the young man with the backwards baseball cap who loved his visit to the Kremlin. In a video produced by the Russian state news agency Sputnik, Mikhail describes himself as the coordinator of a grassroots initiative.

“The goal of our civic platform, ‘For Fair Elections,’ is aimed at informing citizens and promoting the importance of their participation in the electoral process,” he said.

Described that way, the organization’s message does not sound political, but its website reveals a clear anti-European stance: “Will we become hostages of European integration, or will we preserve our national identity, traditions, and values?” it asks. “Moldova should become free of foreign ideologies that are imposed from abroad.”

Reporters found another Moscow trip participant, Artyom, taking part in a small anti-EU and anti-NATO protest in the center of Chisinau.

Artyom had received a grant from Evrazia for a project called “The View and Legacy of a Generation.” Its purpose, he said, was to hold excursions for children to visit Second World War sites in Moldova and “remember the holiday, the Victory Day of the Great Patriotic War.” 

Commemoration of the Soviet victory against Hitler is a key plank of Putin’s ideological program — and, indeed, Artyom was not a supporter of European integration.

“I’m an activist,” he said. “I want our country to be ours, and not to be sold to unknown people piece by piece. Germany, the European Union, and all of that.”

Grants like Artyom received are one of the ways Evrazia funnels money into Moldova and other countries.

“I’ll tell you how to get a million rubles,” says a young man in one of the organization's videos. “Let's say you have an idea: You want to restore a historical monument, to hold an exposition or exhibition dedicated to a significant historical event. We’ll help bring your project to life. Apply for a grant from Evrazia and implement your idea.”

This July, Evrazia published a list of 73 grants it had already paid out. Among them were at least 10 from Moldova, including one to create a touristic website, one to hold a film festival, and one to promote “harmony, sport, and education for Moldovan women.”

New Financial Pathways

The source of Evrazia’s financing is unknown. But reporters from RISE Moldova have found that, in the last few months, Shor has founded several Russian financial service companies in partnership with state financial institutions sanctioned by the West.

In one of Shor’s companies, Exim International, his minority partner is Vneshekonombank, a major economic development institution whose president is appointed by Vladimir Putin, and receives instructions directly from him.

Another company, A7, is owned jointly by Shor and by Promsvyazbank, a Russian state-owned bank that is officially designated as supporting the country’s defense sector.

As reported by RISE Moldova, the publicly stated purpose of these companies is to develop financial instruments that Russian firms can use to conduct business internationally without being impeded by Western sanctions. 

But Promsvyazbank has already made several appearances in Shor’s efforts to move money into Moldova through Evrazia — including the massive vote-buying scheme revealed earlier this month.

According to police and prosecutors, who have seized mobile phones and other evidence, the recipients of the money used Promsvyazbank’s mobile app to receive money in Russian accounts.

The transfers took place on a mass scale. In an audio recording released by Moldovan police, one local activist complains that her people have not yet been paid. Another activist then calls a man named Alexander — whom he calls “our curator in Moscow” — and asks about the missing money.

Alexander is apologetic. “They’re just trying to open [accounts] for everyone at once, and they just physically can’t do it in time,” he says. “It’s such a huge volume, if you count the sympathizers, the activists, it’s thousands and thousands of people.”

Getting Gifts and Voting No

In the same recording, an activist also refers to other “sympathizers” who received a separate infusion of funds. “It’s those people who are, let’s say, willing to vote: Pensioners,” he says.

He was referring to another Evrazia scheme, also involving Promsvyazbank, under which tens of thousands of Moldovan pensioners and state workers in three regions are receiving monthly payments from Evrazia, billed as “humanitarian assistance.”

The largest of these regions is Gagauzia, an ethnically distinct, largely pro-Russian area whose leader, Evgenia Gutul, is on trial for allegedly channeling Russian money to Shor’s former political party.

Under her leadership, Gaugazia signed official agreements with both Evrazia and Promsvyazbank to collaborate on providing the funds. According to Gutul, the local pensioners are receiving 2,000 lei (about $115) per month. She has said over 30,000 people, or nearly a quarter of Gaugazia’s population, were receiving the payments.

Asked by reporters about the source of the money, Gutul said it came from “philanthropists” and “friends who help the residents of Gagauzia.”

In a relatively poor region, there is no question that the aid does help. But it also has the function of securing political support for Shor and his allies.

Reporters met some of the aid recipients at a protest in support of Gutul in front of the Chisinau Court. Among them is a woman from a Gaugazian village who said that she spent her supplement on firewood. 

“And what has Maia Sandu promised?” she said angrily. “Nothing. She only promised, promised, and isn’t helping. And here they helped me, at least this much.”

“We’ve never hidden our collaboration with Promsvyazbank or our financing of Evrazia’s ambassadors,” Shor wrote on Telegram last month. “We’re helping improve the lives of people who have ended up in poverty as a result of the authorities’ inaction.”

He has also denied any improper Russian ties. “We are an absolutely independent party which defends only the position of Moldovan citizens,” he told the Washington Post in 2022. 

But, citing intelligence documents obtained from Ukraine, the Post reported that Russian FSB agents had worked closely with Shor, whom they referred to as “the young one” and saw as a promising agent of influence. 

His role — and that of Evrazia — closely conform to the Kremlin’s strategy for wielding Russian influence in Moldova. As reported by OCCRP partner VSquare last year, a cache of secret Russian documents from 2021 set out a plan for how to influence Moldova in the decade ahead.

Among the medium-term goals — to be accomplished through 2025 — are the following:

• “expansion of the electoral base of Moldovan political forces advocating constructive relations with the Russian Federation.”

• “ensuring the sustainable functioning of the system of organizational, financial, legal and information support of NGOs friendly to the Russian Federation.”

For now, the Moldovan authorities are hard-pressed to deal merely with the vote buying ahead of Sunday’s referendum.

“We don't even have the goal of fully documenting the people who are guilty in these two weeks that are left,” said Viorel Cernauteanu, head of the General Police Inspectorate, in an early October press conference.

Meanwhile, many of the leading figures in Shor’s operation, including Shor himself, have been sanctioned by the United States for election interference or, in Arshinova’s case, for being a member of the Russian parliament.

But this doesn’t seem to be slowing them down. For Shor’s allies, the sanctioning of Evrazia and its director Parutenko in September was an occasion for further bragging: “Great news!” wrote Arshinova on Telegram. “It means we’re definitely doing everything right — and that’s after just five months of work! How much more we’ll do!”