Russia caught interfering in Moldovan elections
Chisinau has declassified a report investigating interference by the Open Dialogue Foundation and its Russian founder, Lyudmila Kozlovskaya, in Moldova’s internal affairs by financing Moldovan political parties, reported the Moldovan state news agency, citing the press service of the Moldovan parliament.
“The commission has reached the conclusion that Open Dialogue’s actions were of a subversive nature and constituted a threat to the state security of the Republic of Moldova,” the report states.
A large number of officials were invited to testify at the commission session, including senior representatives from the Information and Security Service, Interior Ministry, and Warning and Money-Laundering Combating Service, Prosecutor General’s Office, Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Affairs, the Central Electoral Commission, as well as representatives of the political parties “Action and Solidarity”, the “Dignity and Truth Platform”, and of the Promo-LEX Association.
The investigation into Open Dialogue’s activity was begun after information came out that the Action and Solidarity and the Dignity and Truth Platform parties had been financed through it. The foundation itself was also discovered to by financed through the Laundromat - an illegal operation which saw tens of billions of dollars from Russia laundered through Moldova.
Lyudmila Kozlovskaya, the head of the fund, was deported from the EU and banned from reentering. She is now considered a Russian intelligence agent.
After declassification, the report was published on the Moldovan parliament’s website, and given to the European Parliament, European Commission, US State Department and Congress, the EU, and the parliaments of Romania, Poland and Ukraine, as well as the OSCE, Council of Europe, UN and other international organizations and national institutions.