By Adam Harrison.

Moldovan presidential candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo and most of his entire election campaign is secretly being managed and funded by Kremlin.

Our editorial office was notified about a leak (www.lubyankaleaks.org/leaks.html) consisting of audio recordings of multiple conversations between a senior leader of the Moldovan Socialist Party and his FSB handler, providing a rare glimpse into the shadow world of Russian interference in the political process of Moldova.

While it is difficult to draw a direct involvement of the candidate itself, we deem it safe to assume that the former Prosecutor General Stoianoglo is no stranger to these back dealings and is aware of Russia’s deep involvement into his election campaign. 

The audio recordings consist of conversations that took place in April this year between Adrian Albu, senior leader of the Moldovan Socialist Party and representative of candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo, and Yuri Gudilin, known FSB operative and person on the US sanctions list since October 2022. 

Adrian Albu is a member of the Moldovan Parliament and crucially a member of the Parliamentary Committee overseeing Security and Defense. He represented Stoianoglo in TV debates, indicating a clear connection between the two. Albu regularly travels to Russia to attend various forums, one of these being the April 2024 XII International Meeting of High Representatives in Charge of Security Issues, in St. Petersburg.

Yuri Gudilin is publicly known as a former employee of the Russian FSB and is now a political strategist. It appears that he continues to primarily focus on Moldova. Gudilin has visited Moldova numerous times, his visits happening often within election dates or just before them. For instance, before the 2020 elections, Gudilin visited Chisinau along with a group of other political technologists. During this unofficial visit, they frequently met at the central office of the Socialist Party and had unhindered access to Igor Dodon’s Moldovan presidential administration. In just a few weeks, they managed to meet with at least seven Socialist deputies, a former advisor to ex-prime minister Ion Chicu, and the mayor of Chisinau. In Moldova, Gudilin is accused of espionage on behalf of Russia. 

Yuri Gudilin purchased air tickets from Moldova to Russia for Adrian Albu, as shown below in an excerpt from this April 23 conversation:

Albu: I hope you don’t buy tickets with your card by any chance?

Gudilin: Well, which f***king card?

Albu: F***king hell! I hope it doesn’t show up anywhere. It’ll be “funny”. 

On April 27, Adrian Albu and Yuri Gudilin are discussing about a meeting between Bodgan Tirdea, also a Moldovan Socialist Party member, Gabriel Calin, a popular blogger in Moldova promoting an anti-Western agenda, and Olga Grak, known FSB associate and political strategist supporting fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor:

Albu: I have met with Bogdan. He said he will go with Olga…

Gudilin: Yes, I saw that. I accompanied her to the hotel, but I did not enter.

Albu: The most interesting part is that Gabi (Gabriel Calin) also entered and we argued on different things.

Gudilin: Where did you meet? At Bogdan’s or at the office?

Albu: In the room. I invited them both in my room. I also gave food to both of them.

In addition to political strategists, the two Socialists Party deputies held meetings with high-ranking Russian officials during their visit to Russian Federation, including Nikolai Patrushev, former head of the FSB, currently an assistant to Putin and one of his close associates. Besides Patrushev, Albu and Tirdea reported to Alexey Shevtsov, deputy secretary of the Security Council, as described in this conversation from April 25:

Gudilin: “Lioha (Alexey Shevtsov) called. We were just sitting with Bogdan (Bogdan Tirdea), drinking. Lioha called and thanked him again for being a good guy and trying hard. And Platonich (Nikolai Patrushev) is happy; everyone is satisfied.”

Albu: “Platonich said: ‘Give me the whole picture.’”

Gudilin: “Well, we will give it to him.”

Adrian Albu was concerned to maintain secrecy around his meetings with the FSB. In this April 27 recording, he doesn’t want to be seen at certain Moscow hotels where other Moldovans might be present and also believes that there might be Moldovan Security Service informers among them:

Albu: „I don’t want to show up at Four Seasons because I don’t want to be noticed by a piece of shit which monitors. Our guys (Moldova security apparatus) are not stupid, trust me on my word. And those faggots that were present in the conference room, there should be a rat among them.

Albu: ”You think that our guys are the stupid of most stupid people (…), but believe me, they are not. You (refering to Gudilin) as ex-spook, you have to understand me”. 

The FSB operative thinks of himself as being a genius for contriving various schemes to balance the influence of Ilan Shor with the requirement to promote a valid candidate and party for the next elections on this recording dated April 27. Gudilin believes that Shor has delivered on the promises to the Russians and he now carries clout with the Kremlin. FSB believes that Shor’s shortcoming is his tarnished image in the West, that likely represents a major limitation to continue to use him in Moldova as a Russian political vehicle. 

Gudilin: “We no longer have the option to renounce Shor given the level of support he now enjoys here (in Russia). (…) He behaved very very correctly. (…) He never backed down, he never gave up. Fuck it, if Dodon fooled them all (Russian leadership), this guy (Shor) always delivered. Meaning, as a partner he proved to be trustworthy. (…) So where is the problem? I know for sure that Shor is a toxic figure in Europe”.  

On April 27, the FSB operative tasked his source to „clean up” the image of the disgraced oligarch Ilan Shor. Gudilin shares with Albu a simple scheme for laundering Shor’s reputation in Moldova. Gudilin’s idea was to accuse pro-Western Moldovan politicians. The goal is to introduce information suggesting that the current pro-European government was also involved in dirty schemes.

Gudilin: “In short, I came up with this concept: what if we spread a rumor in Europe that slightly cleans up Shor? Right now he’s one big black spot. But if there are many such spots, then against them, he’s not so black.”

Gudilin: “It’s just one group of bandits fighting another group of bandits; only that one group points the finger at the other and screams that they are evil. Thus, they start using people as a front for their actions… They wrapped themselves first in the European flag to mislead while Shor wrapped himself in the Russian one only later… He had no other choice.”

On the night of October 21, after the first round of voting, when the ballots were being tabulated, Maia Sandu convened a press conference and claimed massive Russian election interference and voter fraud in the Moldovan elections. 

The audio recordings, independently verified by Russia experts, reveal what political pundits consider to be an open secret: that Moscow controls and finances the pro-Russian parties in Moldova and that FSB runs sources in the Moldovan political arena to better manage and guard their interests. Adrian Albu and Bogdan Tirdea are just two of the Kremlin`s associates through whom FSB controls the Moldovan Socialist Party. Their loyalty is for Kremlin and their actions amount to high treason in any jurisdiction. 

The larger story remains Russia’s pervasive maneuvering in Moldova and likely in all the countries it perceives as satellites. The weave of joint efforts of high-level politicians (such as Patrushev), political strategists (the infamous Olga Grak) and security apparatus is meant to turn these countries in Russia’s direction and consolidate the Kremlin’s grip.