Russia’s methodical attacks exploit the fragility of Ukraine’s system
Control of Moldova’s two main pro-Russian TV channels was transferred to a close associate of Shor’s in late September, according to Shor and the head of Moldova’s media oversight board, offering him a main platform to advance in a Moscow-aligned time. table in the small country wedged between Ukraine and Romania. In addition, intercepted communications show that the FSB sent a team of Russian political strategists to advise Shor’s party. And, according to the documents, the FSB oversaw a deal in which a Russian oligarch acquired one of Shor’s main assets, to protect him from Moldovan authorities.
The Shor party to position itself as a party of “concrete action”, populist “in the true sense of the word”, a party that “changed people’s lives for the better”, Russian strategists wrote in a report to the FSB, which among the documents reviewed through The Post.
In an interview, Shor denied receiving help from Moscow and added security services. “We are a surely independent party that defends only the position of Moldovan citizens,” he said. closer to what he called an “economic collapse. “In a statement released last month following the imposition of sanctions by the US, the US imposed sanctions on the issue of sanctionsThe days are numbered and we are going to kick her out. “Siege. “
Moldovan and U. S. officials worry that the Kremlin’s efforts to topple Moldova, as part of a decades-long campaign, could escalate if they suffer additional losses in Ukraine. “, Russian agents have considered increasingly desperate measures to prevent further erosion of their influence,” the Treasury said in pronouncing sanctions against Shor and others.
Moldova, which, in combination with Ukraine, received the EU’s prestige candidate agreement in June, is particularly vulnerable to Russian tension due to its dependence on almost 100% Russian fuel. A five-fold backlog in fuel rates this year has hit its population of 2. 5 million hard, and energy expenses now account for more than 60 percent of a Moldovan’s average cost of living, officials in Chisinau said.
Russian officials “are very embarrassed by the all-out operation in Ukraine and want a good fortune somewhere,” Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Serebrian said in an interview. “My private concern is that Moldova is a target more than Ukraine. “, for a kind of ethical rearmament of Russian society, they can use other equipment in Moldova. The first is economical. “
Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled herbal fuel monopoly, cut off Moldova’s source by 50 percent this month. Russian airstrikes Ukraine’s military infrastructure is further increasing pressure. turns to Romania.
In addition, Transnistria, the Russian-occupied enclave that controls the power plant that supplies the remaining 70% of the country’s electricity needs, cut those volumes absolutely this week due to the cutting of Gazprom’s fuel source, leaving the Moldovan government desperate to succeed in a deal with Romania to fill the hole and put in place emergency energy-saving measures. “Every bomb that falls on a Ukrainian military plant is a bomb that also falls on Moldova’s electricity source,” said Nicu Popescu, Moldova’s foreign minister.
Officials worry that protests organized through Shor, though small for now, could escalate once winter arrives and that an energy crisis could be used to topple the government.
Last month, Moldova’s new anti-corruption prosecutor arrested 24 people and added members of Shor’sArray in connection with alleged illicit financing of protests. The prosecutor said investigators seized 20 black bags filled with 3. 5 million lei (about $181,000) in cash. Array The Shor said the arrests were “pressure” from the government to disrupt anti-government protests.
In the interview, Shor said the Moldovan government is to blame for the development of the economic crisis because it “breaks Moldova’s impartial prestige and harms Moldovan people because today, for people in general, [good relations with Moscow] are the basis for getting general fuel. “prices.
“A true idol”
The documents offer an occasional glimpse into the murky world of Russia’s influence operations in Moldova and the dual tools of herbal fuel and illicit financing that the Kremlin wields here.
“The Russians export two things very well: energy and corruption,” said a senior Moldovan security official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
Since 2016, FSB operations in Moldova have been led by Dmitry Milyutin, a security service general who is deputy head of the operational data department, according to the documents. For most of his tenure, officials said, Milyutin worked with Igor Chaika, a Russian businessman who is the son of Russia’s former prosecutor general. Chaika is the ambassador to Moldova of a Kremlin-linked industry association, Delovaya Rossiya.
The Treasury also imposed sanctions on Chaika last month, which “in collaboration with Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov,” had “drawn up detailed plans to undermine Moldovan President Maia Sandu and return Moldova to Russia’s sphere of influence. “
In addition, according to the Treasury, the Russian government used “Chaika’s companies as a front to funnel cash to participating political parties in Moldova. Part of that illicit crusade budget went to bribery and electoral fraud. “
Milyutin communicated with Chaika more than 6,000 times between December 2020 and June 2022, according to Ukrainian intelligence documents.
The FSB “checked with [Chaika] what needed to be done at any time,” a Ukrainian security official said, referring to the documents. Chaika “is like a wallet for them. “
The FSB, Milyutin and Chaika responded to requests for comment. Peskov told the Post that he knew Chaika “of course” but had never worked with him on plans to repair Russian influence in Moldova. “I have something to do with Moldova,” he said.
Russian spies misunderstood Ukraine and misled the Kremlin when they approached
Until recently, documents show that the FSB’s main vehicle in Moldova, the Socialist Party, led by Igor Dodon, who was Moldova’s pro-Moscow president between 2016 and 2020. Chaika has never hidden his close ties to Dodon: He co-owns corporations in Russia with Dodon’s younger brother in real estate and control since 2019, according to the company’s official registration documents.
However, the Socialist Party’s strategy turned out badly in 2020, when the Moldovan population rejected Dodon after he was embroiled in a series of corruption scandals. He needed between $800,000 and $1 million a month to cover his party’s “operating costs. “
Dodon, who has been charged with treason, illicit enrichment, corruption and illicit party financing, did not respond to requests for comment from the spokesman for the Socialist Party, of which he is still a member. In court, he denied the charges and said the case was “100% political” opposed.
Moldovans elected Sandu, a former World Bank economist, as the country’s new president on November 15, 2020.
Moldovan political strategists hired through the FSB reported in Moscow in September 2021 that the defeat of the Socialist Party in that year’s parliamentary elections was “the result of a systemic crisis” and that Dodon was a user with an “irreversibly broken reputation” whose withdrawal from the political scene will have to be carried out with “surgical virtuosity”.
The virtuosity came in the form of a golden handshake, the documents show. After Dodon left the Socialist Party, he appointed chairman of the Moldovan-Russian Business Council, an organization created by Delovaya Rossiya, connected to the Kremlin. Dodon’s monthly salary, paid through the works council, is $29,016, plus a monthly bonus of $14,508, according to documents.
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Moscow temporarily intensified its search for Dodon’s political replacement. Shor, who entered politics after presiding over a major Moldovan bank and duty-free chain, as well as Moldova’s advertising airport, noted through pollsters that they ran for the FSB as something of a populist, but manipulable showman, according to the documents. He had good fortune from the beginning in 2015, when he was elected mayor of the Moldovan city of Orhei. But two years later, he was convicted of looting a billion dollars from Moldova’s banking formula, a 2014 theft that left the Moldovan government with a budget deficit of 8% of gross domestic product.
Shor remained mayor while the conviction looked good, but then left the country for Israel in 2019, denying bank robbery charges, which he described as politically motivated. He continued to lead the exile and came third in the 2021 parliamentary elections. with 5. 7% of the vote.
“For some, [Shor] is obviously allergic, an unacceptable figure. But for others, he is a true idol and leader,” according to an April 2021 report through FSB strategists.
Political strategists hired by the Kremlin first traveled to Chisinau from Russia in March 2021 to work secretly with Shor’s components, according to the documents. They went to great lengths to make sure their presence was not discovered, buying prepaid SIM cards to record phones. and keep hidden the addresses of the components they rented, including members of the Shor component, according to a note written by one of them that is part of the documentary treasure.
One of the measures they recommended to the Shor component was to erase as much as possible the “negative funds,” possibly Shor’s convictions by previous criminals, and try to erase his trademark on the Internet. In a chart that was part of the recommendations referring to the FSB, strategists proposed providing “rewards” to news hounds for removing articles “in excessive circumstances” or for gaining “control of court decisions” if the Shor component chose to sue instead.
Shor said his party had used the facilities of “different foreign consultants” but was not aware of the March 2021 scale because he did not live in Moldova at the time.
Shor also got help from the FSB for some other component of his trading empire. Amid a standoff with Moldovan authorities, the FSB largely coordinated a 2020 deal in which Shor’s majority stake in the company that manages Chisinau’s strategically vital airport was transferred to a Russian hardliner. billionaire, Andrei Goncharenko, according to the documents. Goncharenko “was told about everything,” a senior FSB official said at a discussion about the deal, according to the documents.
Shor said in the interview that he had never had a stake in the airport and resigned as chairman of its board in the summer of 2019, when the company was reportedly sold to Nathaniel Rothschild, a British businessman. But FSB documents related to the deal refer to the airport as an “asset” of Shor as of January 2020, while senior Moldovan officials also said in interviews that it is directed through Shor. A user familiar with the deal said Rothschild acquired an option. to buy the company but never closed the deal. A spokesman for Rothschild declined to comment.
A representative for Goncharenko responded to requests for comment.
On the streets of the Moldovan capital, monetary machinations might seem remote to those struggling to pay their bills. For many protesters, despite the prosecutor’s accusations that some are paid to protest, their considerations are genuine and pressing.
“People go out because we can’t live,” said retiree Zina. “Gas costs have increased fivefold and pensions and wages are the same. Shor gave us gifts on national holidays.
Short-backed protesters have resorted to competitive tactics over the past two weeks and, as Moldova’s energy crisis intensifies, alarm is developing in Chisinau and Western capitals.
The Russians are “doing everything they can to turn off the lights,” a Western official said at one point. “They don’t want to do much more than that to destabilize the Moldovan government. “
The latest: Russia today ordered the withdrawal of its troops from the southern city of Kherson and its immediate surroundings, redeploying its forces to the east bank of the Dnieper, in what appears to be the first setback for President Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s gamble: The Post tested the trail of the war in Ukraine and Western efforts to come together to thwart the Kremlin’s plans, through in-depth talks with more than 3 dozen senior U. S. , Ukrainian, European and NATO officials.
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