With a population of just 2.6 million and one of the smallest economies in Europe, Moldova barely registers by most European Union metrics. Yet the small former Soviet republic wedged between EU member Romania and war-ravaged Ukraine has drawn outsized attention from the continent’s powerful democracies and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Russia was monitoring the ongoing presidential election in Moldova, but was not interfering in it despite a flurry of allegations from the West and Moldova's pro-Western president to the contrary.

The close election demonstrates the challenging path toward Western democracy for former Soviet states.