By Tom Balmforth and Felix Hoske

CHISINAU (Reuters) -A Moldovan security official accused Russia on Sunday of “massive interference” as Moldovans voted in a tightly fought presidential election that could see Moscow claw back influence in a country drawing closer to the European Union.

Pro-Western incumbent Maia Sandu, who has accelerated the nation’s push to leave Moscow’s orbit and join the EU, faces Alexandr Stoianoglo, an ex-prosecutor general backed by the traditionally pro-Russian Socialist Party.

The fortunes of Sandu, who set Moldova on the long path of EU accession talks in June, is being closely watched in Brussels a week after Georgia, another ex-Soviet state seeking membership, re-elected a ruling party regarded in the West as increasingly pro-Russian.

The future of Moldova, a poor agricultural nation of fewer than 3 million people, has been in the spotlight since Russia began its full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in 2022.

“We’re seeing massive interference by Russia in our electoral process … an effort with high potential to distort the outcome,” Sandu’s national security adviser Stanislav Secrieru wrote on X.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which has denied past allegations of meddling. Moldova has accused Ilan Shor, a fugitive oligarch living in Russia, of spending millions of dollars to pay off voters to oppose Sandu. He denies wrongdoing.

Stoianoglo says he supports EU integration, but also wants to develop ties with Russia in the national interest. He wants to renegotiate cheap Russian gas supplies and said he would meet with President Vladimir Putin if Moldovans wanted it.

“I voted for a free, stable and blossoming Moldova that isn’t standing with its hand out, but develops in harmony based on relations with the West and East,” he said after casting his ballot.

Polling stations close at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT). Early results will start coming in an hour later, but they will change, possibly significantly, as they are updated with the vote from larger cities like Chisinau and the diaspora abroad.

The results will set the tone for parliamentary elections next year when Sandu’s party may struggle to retain its majority.

“Today is a crucial day for us… we go in one direction or the other. We didn’t have such an important day in the last 30 years,” said Mihai David, 58, who voted in Chisinau.

“My son is in Germany, and I’m happy about it. I was there and it’s much better and we want it to be the same here,” said Maria Fefilova, 68, a pensioner.

Stoianoglo’s East-West balancing rhetoric contrasts with Sandu’s four years in power, during which ties with the Kremlin have unravelled, Moscow’s diplomats have been expelled and she has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Moscow calls her government “Russophobic”.

Sandu portrays Stoianoglo as the Kremlin’s man and a political Trojan horse, painting Sunday’s vote as a choice between a bright future in the EU by 2030 or one of uncertainty and instability.

Stoianoglo says that is untrue and that Sandu has failed to look out for the interests of ordinary Moldovans. He accuses her of divisive politics in a country that has a Romanian-speaking majority and large Russian-speaking minority.

MEDDLING ALLEGATIONS

Security official Secrieru cited reports of Moldovans being transported to vote in an organised and therefore illegal way from Moldova’s pro-Moscow breakaway region of Transdniestria where Russia has soldiers stationed as peacekeepers.

Voters there have to travel to Moldovan-controlled territory to vote, but do so under their own steam. By 11 a.m., turnout for the region was already higher than it was for the whole of the first round on Oct. 20, Secrieru said.

He said people had also been brought by organised group transport from Russia and taken by bus and on large charter flights to Moldovan polling stations abroad in Baku, Istanbul and Minsk.

There had also been coordinated cyberattacks targeting the connectivity of voter record systems and disrupting links between polling stations domestically and abroad, he said.

The police have cracked down to try to avoid a repeat of what they said was a vast vote-buying scheme deployed by Shor in the first round and a referendum on the EU’s aspirations that was held the same day.

Sandu has said the meddling affected the Oct. 20 results and that Shor sought to buy the votes of 300,000 people, more than 10% of the population. The referendum delivered a slender win of 50.35% for the pro-EU camp. Sandu won 42% of the vote in the first round. Stoianoglo came second with 26%.

A Moldovan government source said Chisinau notified several EU nations that it believed Russia would try to disrupt voting by expatriates at polling stations in their countries on Sunday. Moldovans living in the West are typically pro-European and more likely to support Sandu.

Secrieru said four bomb hoaxes had been reported to polling stations in Britain’s Liverpool and Northampton and Germany’s Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern.

Stoianoglo is expected to benefit from protest votes against Sandu’s handling of the economy. Moldova struggled with the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and the effects of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, which sparked a huge influx of refugees and sharply reduced Russian gas supplies, causing high inflation.

In Gagauzia, a largely pro-Russian autonomous region, a dozen voters polled by Reuters outside a polling station suggested or said outright that they voted for Stoianoglo.

“We’re a neutral country and we don’t need the European Union. For the last four years, we haven’t seen anything from our president… The prices are high, everything is expensive, everything,” said Dmitry, 57, a communal worker.