{"id":208580,"date":"2025-09-12T11:33:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/?p=208580"},"modified":"2025-09-12T12:09:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T09:09:53","slug":"campaniile-de-dezinformare-ale-kremlinului-si-oligarhilor-fugari-pe-platformele-meta-si-youtube-mai-iulie-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/analyzes\/208580\/campaniile-de-dezinformare-ale-kremlinului-si-oligarhilor-fugari-pe-platformele-meta-si-youtube-mai-iulie-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGNS BY THE KREMLIN AND FUGITIVE OLIGARCHS ON META AND YOUTUBE PLATFORMS. MAY &#8211; JULY 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Authors: Andrei Rusu, Andrei Cur\u0103raru<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Between April 30 and July 28, the Russian Federation, through the network led by oligarch Ilan Shor, and several local political actors sponsored 1,505 advertisements on Meta platforms, with a total estimated budget of \u20ac45,000. On YouTube, Shor and Natalia Morari placed 319 ads, the total cost of which cannot be determined.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The analysis reveals an unprecedented concentration of resources in a single core: the Ilan Shor network.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>88,1%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of Meta ads and<\/span><b> 70.4%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the budget are attributed to this actor.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>MD24<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> acts as a major proxy node, running <\/span><b>~69%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of \u0218or&#8217;s total ads before being removed by Meta.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A clear <\/span><b>tactical diversificatio<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">n is evident: \u0218or combines official pages, media proxy pages, and anonymous pages to fragment risk and increase coverage. This model reduces the visibility of the primary source and creates <\/span><b>operational redundancy<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: even after MD24&#8217;s removal, ad distribution continues through anonymous pages and individual accounts.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ilan \u0218or has significantly increased his sponsorship budgets, allocating \u20ac31,687 for 1,326 ads. The pages he finances belong to politicians <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/vasile.tarlev.official\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vasile Tarlev<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61557759692101\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Victoria Furtun\u0103<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/inimamoldovei.md\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the Republican &#8220;Inima Moldovei&#8221; Party<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ppmoldovamare\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the &#8220;Moldova Mare&#8221; Political pPrty,<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ads\/library\/?active_status=all&amp;ad_type=political_and_issue_ads&amp;country=MD&amp;is_targeted_country=false&amp;media_type=all&amp;search_type=page&amp;source=ad-report&amp;view_all_page_id=461132680397252\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MD24<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> TV station. He has also reactivated sponsorships on anonymous pages with patriotic names such as: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61577281816751\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u0218tiri din Moldova, <\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61577683465829\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u0421\u0438\u043b\u044c\u043d\u0430\u044f \u041c\u043e\u043b\u0434\u043e\u0432\u0430<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61571199699875\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">News Moldova<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In terms of spending, \u0218or is followed by Andrei N\u0103stase, who allocated approximately \u20ac10,000 for 110 ads. For the first time, the monitoring includes the &#8220;Respect Moldova&#8221; Party, led by Marian Lupu, former president of the Democratic Party of the Republic of Moldova. Marian Lupu allocated \u20ac3,373 for 61 advertisements.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>During the monitored period, the primary propaganda narratives promoted through<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>advertisements on Meta and YouTube were:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>The PAS government will rig the parliamentary elections in the diaspora;<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>The PAS government is persecuting the Orthodox Church in Moldova;<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>The PAS government has impoverished Moldova;<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>PAS has imposed censorship in Moldova;\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>The EU and PAS have destroyed Moldovan agriculture;<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Bugeac belongs to the Republic of Moldova and not to Ukraine;<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Moldova will never become an EU member.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These campaigns aim to undermine Moldova&#8217;s pro-European trajectory, destabilize the political climate, and erode trust in state institutions. As a result, poor communication from authorities and pro-European parties contributes to a decline in confidence in the country&#8217;s European direction. In the context of the parliamentary elections, the authorities, in collaboration with civil society, must intensify their efforts to combat disinformation by actively informing the public and urge digital platforms to prevent electoral interference.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Between<\/span><b> April 30 and July 28, 2025<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>1,505<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> sponsored ads were identified on Meta platforms, with a total budget of approximately <\/span><b>\u20ac45,000<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><b>Ilan \u0218or<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> dominates the sponsorships: <\/span><b>1,326 ads (\u224888% of the volume), with \u20ac31,687 spent<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. He is followed by <\/span><b>Andrei N\u0103stas<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">e <\/span><b>(110 ads, ~\u20ac10,000)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>Marian Lupu&#8217;s &#8220;Respect Moldova&#8221; Party (61 ads, \u20ac3,373)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><b>Natalia Morar<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">i moved her activity to YouTube, where she sponsored only 4 ads on <\/span><b>Meta (~\u20ac399)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but promoted video content heavily (see the YouTube section). <\/span><b>Official data<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on spending and audiences for YouTube <\/span><b>is missing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> because Google did not activate the &#8220;political ads&#8221; label.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Report-eng-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Open the analysis here.<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authors: Andrei Rusu, Andrei Cur\u0103raru Between April 30 and July 28, the Russian Federation, through the network led by oligarch Ilan Shor, and several local political actors sponsored 1,505 advertisements [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analyzes","category-slider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdog.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}