Russia’s Influence Operations and Electoral Sovereignty: Election Interference Across Selected Electoral Cases.

This thesis analyses the question of Russian election interference operations through a comparative case study of the United States 2016, Moldova 2024, and Romania 2024-2025. In particular, the research investigates whether there was a common strategic logic behind Russian operations, their variation across target states and what consequences they produced for electoral sovereignty, institutional autonomy, and alliance coordination. The study uses a structure, focused analysis and applies a neorealist framework that allows to examine the cases from the perspectives of operational pattern, deniability, intensity, escalation management, and consequences. The analysis shows that Russian election influence operations in all three cases followed a common strategic logic that revolved around indirectness, multiple tool usage, and efforts at shaping a wider political environment beyond the election results alone. However, the manner in which these operations were conducted depended on the structural position of the target state. In the United States, the influence was broad, advanced, and politically destabilising, but it stayed limited in nature and highly indirect. In Moldova, it was the most deeply embedded, and included disinformation, illegal financing, bribing of voters, and organised mobilisation. In Romania, it was well-coordinated and serious, but it was mainly concentrated in the digital space, through manipulation of platforms, amplification of content, and influencer promotions. The thesis concludes that Russian election influence operations are instruments of interstate competition that adapt to the vulnerability and retaliatory power of the target state, producing tangible effects even where they do not determine the results of the elections.