Questionable credentials: Pro-Kremlin observers flock to Moldova’s parliamentary elections

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Moldova’s parliamentary elections, which are currently underway, are being held amid unprecedented political pressure from Russia. One of the tools of this interference campaign involves an influx of “foreign observers” who had previously paid little attention to Moldova. Below, The Insider presents just a few of the most striking examples.

A neo-Nazi’s girlfriend and the Center for Geostrategic Studies (Serbia)

The director general of the Serbian Center for Geostrategic Studies (CGS), Dragana Trifković, was one of the individuals who requested accreditation for the elections. A letter signed by her was sent to Moldova’s Central Election Commission back on Aug. 6.

In her letter, the head of the Center claimed that the CGS is engaged in promoting democracy and the rule of law. The organization has written repeatedly about Moldova, including statements that most of the country’s citizens are “skeptical about the idea of European integration,” which was disproved by referendum results.

Trifković herself has previous experience as an international observer — for example, in the so-called Luhansk “People’s Republic” (or “LPR”) in 2015. Her personal archive contains many photos with pro-Russian separatists, including the neo-Nazi sadist Alexey Milchakov, founder of the Rusich Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group. (Milchakov is best known for posing with the severed ears of Ukrainian prisoners and with the severed heads of puppies he killed and ate.)

Trifković also observed the Russian presidential election in Crimea in 2018, the referendum on Donbas’s annexation to Russia in 2022, and the presidential election in Abkhazia in 2025 (though at polling stations located in Russia).

For her role as an observer at referendums in occupied Ukrainian territory, Trifković was listed in Ukraine’s Myrotvorets database. In her view, the decision to join the “LPR/DPR,” Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions to Russia was made through elections “in compliance with democratic procedures.”

In addition to her overt sympathies for Moscow, investigative journalists have reported that Trifković was also directly connected with the NewsFront project — a pro-Kremlin news agency often placed in the same category as RT and Sputnik. In April 2021, NewsFront came under U.S. sanctions, with Washington linking it to the FSB.

The Abkhazian Italian and the International Diplomatic Observatory (Italy)

Another letter reviewed by The Insider came from Vito Grittani, founder of the International Diplomatic Observatory (Osservatorio Diplomatico Internazionale). Despite his Italian background, Grittani holds citizenship of Abkhazia, a breakaway region on the Black Sea coast, which is internationally recognized as part of Georgia but has been controlled by Russian-backed authorities since the early 1990s.

In August 2016, he was appointed special envoy of the Abkhazian Foreign Ministry to Italy, and in 2019, he visited Transnistria.

As an observer, Grittani was present at the 2022 referendum on the annexation of “new territories” to Russia, the 2023 “LNR” elections, and the presidential election in Abkhazia in 2025. He described the 2022 referendum as being conducted “at a high level,” insisting on its fairness and transparency.

African election observers and their ties to Russia

The largest group of observers — 30 people — for Moldova’s parliamentary elections was put forward by the African Institute of Solidarity (Institut Africa Solidarité, IAS). In the accreditation request letter reviewed by The Insider, the authors stressed their extensive experience as election observers in different countries: the Central African Republic, Mali, Senegal, Chad, partially recognized “Republic of Abkhazia.”

Unlike their European colleagues, the Institute’s representatives are less media-focused, but some of them also have ties to Russia. For example, last year the Institute’s president, Umar Thomson Belem (Burkina Faso), and Guinean politician Abdoulaye Kuruma attended the BRICS summit in Kazan. Notably, their latter claimed that “the press and the international community followed the summit in Kazan more closely than the preparations for elections in the United States.”

Other Institute representatives have also visited Russia at different times. For example, in 2021, Cameroonian diplomat Jean François Nicolas Biboum, was in the country as a “foreign expert for experience exchange” to the Russian State Duma elections.

After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Biboum voiced support for Moscow by posting a caricature of the United States on social media. Local media outlets in the Urals (1, 2, 3) picked up the story, noting that the diplomat had come to Chelyabinsk specifically to “exchange experience” during the State Duma elections. In September 2022, he served as an observer at the referendum on the “LPR’s” annexation to Russia.

Another potential observer with known ties to Russia is Abdoulaye Njai, a member of the Gambian parliament. In July of this year, he took part as an expert in the Summer School of the Far Eastern Federal University for government officials.

However, most of the potential observers from Africa whose names The Insider obtained have never appeared in the media, and some are entirely unrelated to politics or public activity. Among them are, for instance, the treasurer of the Burkina Faso Football Federation and an IT specialist from Senegal.

How Moldova’s CEC responded to fake observers

In an interview with The Insider, Moldova’s Central Election Commission (CEC) deputy chairman Pavel Postica described such observers as unscrupulous:

“If we proceed from the fact that they can afford to violate international law, then we cannot rule out that they may violate the legislative norms of the Republic of Moldova.”

According to Postica, many recommendations to refuse accreditation of such observers came from the country’s Security and Intelligence Service (SIS). The CEC, together with the agency, screened every candidate: among them, Postica said, “there are many people who do business by monitoring so-called elections — as in the case of the referendum in Crimea and in the unrecognized republics of Abkhazia and Ossetia, as well as in Transnistria.”

In particular, an unusually large number of representatives from African countries — individuals who had previously shown no interest in elections in Moldova — tried to obtain accreditation to observe the parliamentary vote. “We have few diplomatic relations with African countries, so this interest seems rather strange to us. But once again, I emphasize, we are conducting checks, and we only allowed those people who have a reputation as bona fide observers,” the CEC deputy chairman noted.

The head of the election integrity department of the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), Lukash Kondrachuk, called such applications suspicious in a conversation with The Insider.

One of EPDE’s projects is the Fake Election Observers database. At least two of the candidates who applied to observe the elections in Moldova have already appeared in this database: the aforementioned Dragana Trifković from Serbia and Vito Grittani from Italy.

Fake election observers primarily promote the interests of specific political forces, creating the illusion of credible election monitoring. For instance, in the case of the referendums on the annexation of Russia’s “new territories,” both Grittani and Trifković praised the procedures for their purported transparency, fairness, and democratic character.

“The main target group for inviting such observers, if the elections are unfair, is the local population, who will be told: ‘Look, these politicians came to us, and they say everything is fine. Don’t listen to Biden or Obama, who say these elections are fake and dishonest. Observers from France and Germany are coming here, so what more do you want from us?’” Kondrachuk explained. “This is very harmful to the very institution of elections.”

In Moldova’s case, another scenario is also possible. If the foreign applicants are denied accreditation as observers, they may start insisting that the electoral process was dishonest:

“[And then] the argument will be: ‘We submitted applications [for accreditation] according to all the rules of Moldova’s CEC. We were not allowed. So how can we talk about fair elections? They admitted some Americans, representatives of some Western countries.’ And then [Maia Sandu’s party] PAS gets, say, 38%, and they will say: ‘Well, how can that be, without observers? We believe it’s more like 28%.’”