"Moldova is full of surprises," "Moldova Live," "Inspiration from Moldova": A number of curious Facebook pages about the nation located between Ukraine and Romania have appeared in recent months. Their names are mostly in Romanian, but some in Russian, and they present themselves as journalistic or news pages, sporting Moldovan colors and posting extensively about local politics and the economy.

According to data shared with Le Monde by the NGO Reset, these fake pages have been used as part of an interference campaign since July 2023 to defend pro-Russian figures and their interests in Moldova, using Facebook advertisements.

Manipulative operations of this kind are not uncommon. According to Reset, though, this one stands out for the significant resources invested. The campaign's estimated advertising budget is between €198,000 and €280,000, said the NGO – almost a quarter of all spending on Facebook political ads in Moldova since 2020. A preliminary report seen by Le Monde lists 605 ads identified since July, garnering at least 155 million views.

The campaign's main objective is promoting the Moldovan investments of Ilan Shor, the famous pro-Russian oligarch who fled the country and is now subject to both American and European sanctions for his links with the Russian authorities. "Ilan Shor's team repaired the roads on Trandafirilor Street in Orhei. The potholes have been filled in, the asphalt repaved and the road markings redone," boasts an advertisement on the "Moldova Live" page, bought for a price of over €1,500 and seen by almost a million people.

Some content identified by Reset was also distributed prior to the local elections on November 5. The posts promoted the candidates of Chance, a pro-Russian organization and clone of Shor, the former political party to which the exiled oligarch gave his name. Although the Chance party was banned from taking part in the elections prior to the poll, a Moldovan court recently overturned this decision.

The campaign also aims to attack the European Union (EU) and the Moldovan government, at a time when the country is making further efforts to draw closer to the EU. The European Commission has recently come out in favor of opening negotiations for its accession to the EU. In October, for example, the "Patriots of Moldova" page broadcast a video of Shor claiming that European monetary aid to the country was a decoy and a trap, and that Moldova had to develop on its own.

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