At the end of July 2025, Russian-language media disseminated a statement allegedly made by Moldovan official Angelica Karaman. We have verified the authenticity of this quote.

It was claimed that amid concerns about possible Russian attempts to influence the results of the upcoming parliamentary elections in Moldova in September, the head of the local central electoral commission, Angelica Karaman, said: “There is a big difference between the EU and other states, so the intervention of a country like France in our elections is not considered external interference. Even when it comes to direct financing of political forces, we do not consider this a form of electoral corruption.” Thus, Karaman not only allegedly admitted Paris’ interference in the election campaign, but also justified it. In some news articles on this topic to be specified, that the head of the Moldovan Central Election Commission made her statement in an interview with Jurnal TV.

Leading Russian media reported this (TASS, NTV, "Russian newspaper", "Vedomosti", "News"), official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, as well as numerous Telegram channels, including “The world today with "Yuri Podolyak""(1.7 million views at the time of writing this analysis), "Anatoly Shariy" (944 000), "Solovyov"(225,000), "Evil proof" (208,000) and "Margarita Simonyan"(199,000).

Parliamentary elections in Moldova planned on September 28. In the run-up to the vote, authorities regularly warn that Russia could interfere in the election campaign and influence the results of the people's will. On July 29, the press service of Moldovan President Maia Sandu reported that the country’s Security Council would discuss this problem the next day. July 30, after the meeting, the head of state stated: “The Russian Federation wants to establish control over the Republic of Moldova from the fall and is preparing unprecedented interference in the September elections.”

“Verified” did not find a statement attributed to Angelica Karaman on the websites of authoritative Moldovan media and their pages on social networks. At the same time, a number of Russian-language sources not only say that the head of the Central Election Commission justified European interference in the elections during an interview with Jurnal TV, but also attaches the corresponding video.

Viral video. Source: Telegram

At the bottom of the frame you can see the address of the Jurnal TV website and its YouTube channel.

However, on these resources No no recent interviews with Karaman. However, on May 22 the official participated in the Cabinetul din Umbră program. She was wearing the same costume as in the viral video, and the title in both videos is also the same.

On the left is a screenshot of the viral video, on the right is a screenshot of an interview for Cabinetul din Umbră. Source: Telegram / YouTube

At the same time, in the May interview, Karaman does not make the statements that are heard in the video distributed by Telegram channels.

“Verified” analyzed the video using a service to identify AI content DeepFake-o-meter, which was developed by researchers from the University at Buffalo. Several detectors immediately showed that the video was highly likely generated by a neural network.

You can say this even more confidently if you use the same service to analyze the audio track from the video.

July 31st video authenticity refuted Central Election Commission of Moldova. Her statement, in particular, says that the video was created “with the explicit purpose of undermining public confidence in democratic institutions, manipulating public opinion and influencing the integrity of the electoral process.” “An investigation is underway to identify the authors, sources of distribution and possible external connections involved in the creation of these materials,” the CEC assured.

The earliest publication of a falsified video, found by “Verified”, appeared on July 29, 21:50 Moscow time in the Telegram channel Victoria Furtune, leader of the opposition party Moldova Mare. The politician accompanied the fake video with her own critical comments. The next morning video distributed Moldovan Russian-language media, and later it was the fragment cut from Furtune’s video with characteristic for her social media accounts with the design of Russian-language subtitles. She did not specify where the politician got this video from, but the next day she deleted the publication, like many other channels.

At the same time, the resources that verbally fight it have become actual distributors of disinformation. So, on July 31, when the fake was already debunked Moldovan journalists, pseudo-fact-checking Telegram channel «War on fakes”, refuting Sandu’s statement about Russian interference in the September elections, used a statement attributed to Karaman as a counter-argument. We also note the incorrect operation of the Grok chatbot, which X users often use to verify the authenticity of information. He repeatedly “confirmed” Karaman’s quote, citing pro-Russian resources, which were far from authoritative.