From Soviet Past to European Future: Latvia Aids Moldova’s Russian Influence Fight

Coop­er­a­tion over Russ­ian influ­ence in Latvia and Moldo­va was strength­ened on 14 April 2025, when Saeima Speak­er Daiga Mie­ri­na promised fur­ther prac­ti­cal sup­port to Moldo­va in com­bat­ing Rus­si­a’s influ­ence and hybrid attacks. The arti­cle begins:

Saeima Speak­er Daiga Mie­ri­na (Greens/Farmers) has promised her Moldovan coun­ter­part Igor Gro­su fur­ther prac­ti­cal sup­port from Latvia, includ­ing in com­bat­ing Rus­si­a’s influ­ence and its hybrid attacks, the Saeima press ser­vice informed LETA. Mie­ri­na, dur­ing the meet­ing with the Moldovan par­lia­ment speak­er in the Moldovan cap­i­tal Chisin­au on Mon­day, not­ed that the two par­lia­ments have excel­lent par­lia­men­tary coop­er­a­tion. She under­lined that since 2024 the Saeima has also sup­port­ed prac­ti­cal train­ing for the staff of the Moldovan Nation­al Assem­bly, and this pro­gram will con­tin­ue this year. The Saeima speak­er stressed that Latvia under­stood Moldova’s chal­lenges, as Latvia had also lib­er­at­ed itself from the Sovi­et Union 35 years ago. There­fore, Latvia appre­ci­ates the ongo­ing com­pre­hen­sive reforms in Moldo­va and its strong com­mit­ment to con­tin­ue them, Mie­ri­na said.

Read more: https://www.baltictimes.com/mierina_promises_moldovan_counterpart_support_fight_against_russian_influence/

Key Points

• Latvia and Moldova’s coop­er­a­tion in fight­ing Russ­ian influ­ence. includes prac­ti­cal train­ing for Moldova’s Nation­al Assem­bly staff that will con­tin­ue through­out 2025.
• Mie­ri­na empha­sized Latvi­a’s under­stand­ing of Moldova’s chal­lenges, cit­ing Latvi­a’s own lib­er­a­tion from the Sovi­et Union 35 years ago.
• Latvia sup­ports Moldova’s inte­gra­tion into the Euro­pean Union while empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of fair elec­tions free from exter­nal influence.
• Mie­ri­na high­light­ed Latvi­a’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing Moldova’s ener­gy sec­tor resilience against Russ­ian hybrid war­fare tactics.

 Latvia’s Strategic Role in Countering Russian Influence in Latvia and Moldova

Latvia’s com­mit­ment to help­ing Moldo­va fight Russ­ian influ­ence is root­ed in its own exten­sive expe­ri­ence resist­ing Krem­lin-backed dis­in­for­ma­tion and desta­bi­liza­tion, a chal­lenge thor­ough­ly exam­ined in the recent assess­ment of Russia’s foot­print in the Nordic-Baltic infor­ma­tion envi­ron­ment, where both coun­tries have faced per­sis­tent attempts to under­mine demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions. As Moldo­va con­fronts a surge in elec­tion inter­fer­ence, with Krem­lin-linked oper­a­tives deploy­ing vast resources to sway the 2024 pres­i­den­tial race and EU ref­er­en­dum through covert fund­ing and coor­di­nat­ed vote-buy­ing, the scale of this oper­a­tion is under­scored by rev­e­la­tions that Russ­ian actors spent €200 mil­lion to influ­ence Moldova’s polit­i­cal land­scape.

Latvia has respond­ed by shar­ing exper­tise in coun­ter­ing hybrid threats and sup­port­ing Moldova’s efforts to strength­en elec­toral integri­ty, while also par­tic­i­pat­ing in region­al ini­tia­tives that expose the sophis­ti­cat­ed net­works behind these influ­ence oper­a­tions, such as the orga­ni­za­tion of Baltic Sea region con­fer­ences in Berlin by Russ­ian oper­a­tives to coor­di­nate strat­e­gy and spread dis­in­for­ma­tion. Inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion has inten­si­fied, with tar­get­ed mea­sures like the UK’s sanc­tions against pro-Russ­ian net­works involved in ref­er­en­dum bribery rein­forc­ing a unit­ed front against Krem­lin inter­fer­ence. This evolv­ing part­ner­ship between Latvia and Moldo­va, sup­port­ed by broad­er Euro­pean engage­ment, reflects a grow­ing con­sen­sus on the urgency of safe­guard­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic process­es and advanc­ing inte­gra­tion in the face of per­sis­tent Russ­ian influence.

Exter­nal References:

1. Leaked doc­u­ment expos­es Krem­lin’s 10-year plan to under­mine Moldova

2. Moldo­va at a cross­roads: Euro­pean aspi­ra­tions, Russ­ian threats, and the bat­tle for democracy

3. Analy­sis: Why Moldo­va is a make-or-break moment to com­bat Russ­ian interference

Disclaimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.