In the context of the presidential election and the referendum on joining the EU, which will take place on October 20, but also in the context of next year’s parliamentary elections, the information space of the Republic of Moldova will certainly be flooded with an avalanche of fake news, disinformation and manipulations, especially from the Russian Federation. The objective of this hybrid warfare is to re-establish the Republic of Moldova in Russia’s orbit, said journalists of the Romanian publication Veridica.ro and of its Chisinau edition Veridica.md that was launched on Monday.
According to Marian Voicu, publisher of Veridica.ro, the main goal of the fake news campaigns in Romania is to obtain the country’s exit from the European Union and NATO, as well as to compromise the European support for Ukraine in the war waged by the Russian Federation. As for the Republic of Moldova, the objective, especially of Russian propaganda, is to re-establish of the Republic of Moldova in the Russian orbit, the journalists stated in a news conference hosted by IPN.
Marian Voicu noted that, for example, the pretext of the Russian army’s aggression in 1992 against Chisinau was similar to that of the start of the war against Ukraine or Georgia. Namely, the pretext that Russian-speakers in the Transnistrian region, Ukraine, Georgia have been the object of genocide of the so-called nationalists from the respective states. “We are going through a complicated period and, regardless of the electoral cycles, we need clarity. There are actors who have come to this disinformation market and who are new actors, such as China. But the Russians are those who have known how to do this for more than a hundred years,” said the journalist.
Mădălin Necșuțu, editor of Veridica.md, a member of the International Association of Romanian Journalists, believes that the time Veridica.md came to the Republic of Moldova could not be better - the presidential election, the referendum on European integration and the parliamentary elections next year. In the next period, a lot of fake news, an avalanche of misinformation and manipulations of all kinds will be thrown on the information market.
“We every day deal with the debunking of fake news. We have this experience and expertise that we want to bring here, across the Prut. We want better knowledge, better discernment in the choice between what is false and what is true in what we read and see every day,” stated Mădălin Necsuțu.
Corneliu Rusnac, coordinating editorial of Veridica.md, said that the publication aims to present the information space in the Republic of Moldova, including the Transnistrian region and Gagauzia, in retrospect. “We will seek to debunk the false information at the national level, the fake news that comes also through Tiraspol and Comrat. We will also make a press review so that everyone knows what the press writes, not only the one in Chisinau, but also the one in Tiraspol, and the one in Comrat. In other words, we will seek to synthesize all this information so that the reader can access in one place, with just a few clicks, all the information related especially to fake news, disinformation, information warfare and more,” stated Corneliu Rusnac.
Note: IPN Agency offers the right of reply to persons who consider that they were targeted in the articles produced based on the statements of the organizers of this press conference, including by facilitating the organization of another press conference in similar conditions.
