The people of Moldova narrowly voted in favour of EU membership on Sunday, but the extremely close result was a blow to pro-European Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who responded by condemning foreign interference.
The Kremlin immediately demanded "proof" regarding these "serious accusations" by the Moldovan President while also criticising "anomalies" in the referendum vote counting.
Meanwhile, the 52-year-old candidate came first in the initial round of the presidential election but is preparing for a challenging second round.
Initially, the "no" vote led for a long time, but the "yes" vote finally edged ahead on Monday morning with 50.28%, just a few thousand votes apart, thanks to the diaspora vote after nearly 99% of ballots were counted.
In her first official reaction in the middle of the night, the head of state condemned "an unprecedented attack on democracy" and vowed to "not give in."
"Criminal groups, acting in concert with foreign forces hostile to our national interests, have attacked our country with tens of millions of euros, lies, and propaganda," declared a stern-faced Sandu to the press.
Over recent months, in response to corruption and disinformation operations, the police have conducted 350 raids and arrested hundreds of suspects accused of attempting to disrupt the electoral process on behalf of Moscow.
A massive vote-buying scheme targeting up to a quarter of voters in the country of 2.6 million people was also uncovered.
According to the think tank WatchDog, Russia spent around a hundred million dollars to influence the vote.
