Igor Dodon has been in Moldova’s political landscape for more than ten years. In the [post-Soviet] Communist Government he served as first deputy prime minister and economy minister. Until 2011 he was in the ranks of Vladimir Voronin’s Party of Communists. He left them to lead the Party of Socialists, a rival left-leaning group.

In 2016 Mr. Dodon won the presidential election in Moldova. As chief of state he often travels to Moscow and openly defends a pro-Russian policy. He insists that Moldova joined the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union.

Mr. Dodon was repeatedly suspended from office for short periods by the lawmakers for refusing to sign a number of laws.

In the electoral race for a new term as president, Igor Dodon is officially an independent candidate, but he still enjoys the support of PSRM - the party with the most seats in the Chisinau legislature.

RISE Moldova analyzed the agenda of the meetings that Igor Dodon saved in a BlackBerry phone that he used until mid-2017 and presents, for the first time, evidence of Dodon's interaction with representatives of the Russian propaganda machine and political strategies. The information is contained in the #Kremlinovici investigation project, carried out in collaboration with the "Досье" Center.

"Kremlinovici" is the username Mr. Dodon used in discussions with Moldovan officials and politicians via an encrypted application.

The RISE Moldova investigation sheds to light that during his long political career, the lawmaker and later President Igor Dodon has been timing his activities with a Moldovan affairs office in the Kremlin - a unit established to oversee and guide the Socialist Party leader and other politicians in the Republic of Moldova, either through intermediaries or directly. Travels to Moscow were frequent. In 2016 alone - the year Dodon won his first presidential mandate – he embarked on at least ten flights to the Russian capital.

The Dodon family owns a house of over 400 square meters, worth over 2 million lei. More than half of the family's income for the year 2019 is the contribution of First Lady Galina Dodon, who earns twice as much as her husband. Mrs. Dodon received approximately 400,000 lei from Exclusiv Media SRL - a company closely connected to the Socialists (PSRM). RISE Moldova had reported about this company for its involvement in the so-called "Russian Operation Bahamas" - which is about pumping offshore money into bank accounts of PSRM members and sponsors a few months before the 2016 presidential election. The money helped Igor Dodon beat his competitors for the top governmental job.

After Igor Dodon withdrew from Parliament at the end of 2021, he moved on to “maintaining” a public association financed by businessmen close to Kremlin.

An investigation by RISE Moldova, in partnership with the “Dossier” Center, revealed six bank transfers from Russia intended for the Moldovan public association led by the former socialist president. Altogether, it amounts to more than 20 million rubles, equivalent to about 5 million lei or approximately 300,000 dollars.

This refers to the Public Association “Moldovan-Russian Business Union” (UAMR), whose co-founder appears as Delovaia Rossia, while the administrator (president) and beneficiary is Igor Dodon.

The socialist leader appears in several criminal cases: from passive corruption to abuse of office. One of the most notorious is the so-called “Kuliok” case, named after the Russian word for a plastic bag.

In May 2020, MP Iurie Renita presented during a press briefing a video of a June 2019 meeting at the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM) between Igor Dodon, then president, former PDM leader Vladimir Plahotniuc (who has since fled the country), and Plahotniuc’s confidant Serghei Iaralov.

The oligarch handed him a black bag allegedly containing money, while Dodon asked: “Are you still walking around with bags?” Dodon did not deny the meeting, but insisted that he only pretended to collaborate with Plahotniuc until the moment he could act and free the country from his captivity, claiming the recordings were manipulative.

The General Prosecutor’s Office initially declared that Renita had not filed any complaint and that it could not act ex officio based on leaked images since it did not know how genuine they were or under what circumstances they were made. Later, former Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo stated that he was convinced the bag contained money, but he could not prove it. “But what I believe is one thing, what we can prove is another”.

A few days later, another video recorded at the same meeting with Plahotniuc showed Dodon admitting to receiving money from the Russians to finance the Socialist Party.

The Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office initially launched proceedings after the images were published, but a month later ordered the case closed. On October 19, 2021, Dodon resigned from his MP mandate. A year later, the National Integrity Authority found a discrepancy of more than 1 million lei between his wealth and income obtained in 2017–2019.

In May 2022, six months after Stoianoglo’s arrest and suspension, a criminal case was nevertheless opened against Dodon in the “Kuliok” case, accusing him of passive corruption and of organizing and accepting political party financing from a criminal organization during his presidency.

He was accused of demanding and accepting between 600,000 and 1 million dollars to pay party salaries, of negotiating as president with Russian representatives the creation of a governing coalition between PDM and PSRM, including the distribution of ministerial posts in the new government, as well as the release of Plahotniuc from criminal liability in Russia.

On 24 May 2022, Dodon was detained after anticorruption prosecutors carried out multiple searches at Sadova (his native village), at his residence in Chisinau, at a recreation base in Sadova, in Molovata on the Dniester, at the headquarters of his foundations, including that of the Moldovan-Russian Business Union, where he was president.

During the raids, prosecutors found assets and cash worth tens of millions of lei, including a receipt showing that Dodon’s wife paid 25,000 euros in cash in August 2021 as a down payment for kitchen equipment, about the family’s total declared income for that year. Some assets were seized.

Dodon was placed under house arrest for six months and later forbidden to leave the country until July 2023.

In October 2022, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office sent the case to the Supreme Court of Justice, the court competent to judge criminal cases involving the President of Moldova as a first instance. The prosecution’s presentation of evidence lasted more than two years due to repeated changes of judicial panels (caused by judges resigning during the vetting procedure), multiple recusal requests by the defense, and difficulties securing witness attendance.

Currently, the trial is still ongoing, with the court examining defense evidence, which consists of more than 190 witnesses.

Six years later, in August 2025, Vladimir Voronin, running on the same electoral list of the Patriotic Bloc, declared on TV8 that the exact sum transmitted to Dodon was 860,000 euros. “Plahotniuc told me this personally. I already testified to the anticorruption prosecutors about it.” The next day, Voronin retracted his statement, claiming it was a joke.

Since September 2022, Dodon has also been on trial in the first instance in the Energocom case, accused of abuse of office. The charges refer to his actions as Minister of Economy in 2008-2009. In May 2008, he signed the notice that favored Energocom (a fully state-owned company) concluding a contract with a Hungarian foreign company to purchase electricity for May 2008-June 2009.

Although Energocom already had two contracts negotiated at prices 29% lower, the higher-priced contract was signed, leading to increased electricity tariffs and damages to the state of nearly $12 million (about 124 million lei), funds that allegedly ended up in offshore accounts.

In November 2022, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office searched the PSRM headquarters in another case, regarding falsification of financial management reports, falsification of official documents, and large-scale money laundering during 2018–2020.

At the beginning of 2023, Dodon asked the Supreme Court judges for permission to leave Moldova for his son’s post-Covid rehabilitation treatment in Romania, supported by a medical prescription. After hearing the doctor who allegedly signed the document, it was found that he did not know Dodon’s son and had stamped the referral at the request of a colleague who regularly treats Dodon’s family. It was also established that all the procedures listed in the medical certificate could be performed in Moldova.

In this third case, Igor Dodon, his wife, and the doctor were accused of forging, possessing, and using an official false document.

In 2024, he was re-elected president of the Socialist Party, openly supporting Alexandr Stoianoglo, who ran independently in that year’s presidential elections.

He teamed up with the Communist Party led by Vladimir Voronin, the Republican Party “Heart of Moldova” of Irina Vlah, and the Party for the Future of Moldova led by Vasile Tarlev in a new electoral bloc for the 28 September 2025 parliamentary elections. He is first on the list.

During the campaign, Dodon made a series of promises: from solving the Transnistrian conflict by unifying the country, to returning the Giurgiuletti port to state ownership, reopening closed schools, and introducing a 50% shelf quota for local products.

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