Ilan Shor

 ( 1987 Births ) 

Shor is a pro-Moscow opposition figure in Moldovan politics who has been described as "a leading figure in the Kremlin’s efforts to subvert" the Republic of Moldova, according to intelligence reports. Shor is known by the moniker "The Young One" by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), which, according to intercepted communications, sent Russian political strategists to assist Shor's political party.

On 31 July, the Moldovan parliament voted in favour of banning the leaders of the dissolved Șor Party and Ilan Shor from standing in elections for a period of five years. Shor has claimed he will contest the ban.

In September 2023, his political party reportedly gathered support and "seized" the ethnic enclave of Gagauzia via embezzled money.

In a 6 July 2025 congress of Victory held in Moscow, Shor stated that he wanted Evghenia Guțul, Governor of Gagauzia, to head the party's electoral list for the 2025 Moldovan parliamentary election. At the moment, Guțul was being investigated for two criminal cases and was under house arrest.

On 9 December 2022, the United Kingdom HM Treasury imposed sanctions, considering Shor an involved person under the Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions Regulations, involved in serious corruption with respect to bribery of foreign public officials.

On 31 May 2023, European Union imposed sanctions against him, due to his association with the Russian government and because of his role in the pro-Russian unrest in Moldova.

In June 2015, while under house arrest, he registered as a candidate in the mayoral election of Orheev, Moldova's fifth-largest city. He was released to participate in the election campaign and won the election in the first round. After that, prosecutors did not set preventive measures against him. In October 2015, Shor delivered a "confession of guilt". He went to the National Anti-Corruption Center (NCAC), and submitted to the prosecutors a 10-page document of "corrupt practices" on the part of former Prime Minister Vlad Filat. According to Shor, in exchange for providing various services and favoring Shor's business, Filat received about $250 million from him over the years. Based on his testimony, Filat was sentenced to nine years in prison. Filat denied any joint business dealings with Ilan Shor.

In 2023, MP Nesterovski, who had been acting in the interests of Shor's criminal group since March, recruited former MP Arina Spătaru (a member of parliament from 2019 to 2021), to create a new pro-European party that would act in the interests of Ilan Shor. Spătaru contacted the Moldovan intelligence services, reporting a financial offer from Shor in exchange for the creation of a controlled pro-European party. This was how Moldova learned of Shor's plans to finance several parties at once in local elections. According to Spătaru, in a private conversation, Shor admitted to her that the money to finance the parties came from Russia. According to political analyst Victor Ciobanu, "for Russia, against the background of the lack of success in the war against Ukraine, it is important to win a geopolitical victory by non-military methods in Moldova," and Shor would help them with this.

In 2023, after the Chișinău Court of Appeal heard the case, the European Commission called the sentencing of Ilan Shor, leader of the pro-Russian Moldovan Shor party, an important step toward justice and the fight against corruption in Moldova.

Maia Sandu, President of Moldova, stated that the Victory political bloc, led by Shor, was created from and for corruption.

The Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) has claimed that Shor, using a "clone party", has started a process of massive corruption and bribery of members of the Party of Socialists. The party in question is the political party Renaștere ("Renaissance"), which came into the public eye after several Socialist MPs joined it in May 2023.

Ilan Shor is under EU, Swiss and US sanctions for trying to destabilize the country.

According to a Washington Post investigation in 2020, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) began cooperating with Shor's party. The political technologists bought prepaid for disposable cellphones, advised the party to erase as much information as possible about the politician's "negative past" (WP suggests it was Shor's criminal record) and try to whitewash his image online. They also advised offering journalists "rewards" for deleting articles. Management control of Moldova's two main pro-Russian TV channels was transferred to a close associate of Shor. This became the politician's main platform for pushing an agenda aligned with Moscow. When Shor had a conflict with Moldovan authorities in 2020, the FSB helped him to transfer one of his key assets — shares in Chișinău International Airport — to Russian businessman Andrei Goncharenko. Shor has said he does not own the stake, but FSB documents from 2020 refer to the airport as "Shor's asset."

In 2024, a number of politicians linked to Shor's group created Victory (political bloc) in Moscow, which aims to strengthen the opposition, already directly or indirectly united by fugitive MP Ilan Shor's former “Shor” party, against the current government. It also aims to change Moldova's pro-European orientation by restoring relations with Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Eurasian Economic Union. Political analysts from Chisinau argue that the creation of the Victory bloc in Moscow marked the beginning of a campaign to destabilize the country. They also claim that this event would not have taken place without the participation of the special services of the Russian Federation and that Ilan Shor is fully under the tutelage of the Moscow services.

The Reset investigation for Wired magazine, published on January 10, 2024, claims that in 2023 Shor spent more than $200,000 on social network advertising campaigns that promoted the Kremlin's interests in Moldova. The publication recalls how in February 2023, it became known that Meta Platforms (the company that owns Facebook and Instagram) allowed Shor to place paid advertisements in social networks calling for protests in Moldova, despite the US sanctions that prohibit US companies from engaging in financial transactions with individuals and groups on the sanctions list. Following this, Meta said it would ban Shor's ads. However, as the publication notes, according to a new investigation, Shor and his party continued to use the social network, launching an even larger advertising campaign to destabilize local elections in Moldova and hinder the country's European integration. According to the investigation, Shor used more than 100 fake pages on Facebook in six months to run hundreds of ads that were viewed more than 155 million times.

On 3 October 2024, Moldovan authorities accused Shor of organising a plot involving $15 million in funds from Russia that were distributed to around 130,000 people in order to bribe voters into selecting anti-Western decisions during the 2024 Moldovan presidential election and the concurrent 2024 Moldovan European Union membership constitutional referendum and spread disinformation against the European Union on social media, following raids on 26 locations nationwide. In response, Shor said that the payments were legal and claimed that Moldova had become a "police state".

In a congress of the Victory bloc held in Moscow on 6 July 2025, Shor stated that he believed "the only salvation" for Moldova was "union with the Russian Federation", a union that should be "strong, stable and durable". He stated that "it makes no sense to talk about the country's independence", adding the comment "one currency, one parliament". Shor justified himself by stating that "all the resources for the development of Moldova reside in the Russian Federation" and that both peoples share "the same cultural code".

In September 2025, an investigation article by The BBC revealed a secret Russian-backed network trying to disrupt the election in Moldova scheduled on 28 September. According to the BBC, sanctioned Russian groups recruited operatives on Telegram, then trained them to spread fake news. They posted pro Russian content, attacked the pro EU ruling party, and ran fake polls to question the results. The investigation linked the operation to Ilan Shor and the banned NGO Evrazia, which reached millions on TikTok and Facebook. Recruits used ChatGPT to create false content after filming opposition supporters. The investigation claims the funding comes from Moscow and is part of wider Kremlin efforts to destabillize Moldova.