Maia Sandu, the pro-European president of Moldova, has claimed victory in a tense run-off election and won another term in office after a vote seen as a decision between siding with the EU or Russia.

After counting about 98 percent of the votes, it was determined that Sandu received 55 percent support, and late last night Sandu herself addressed the citizens announcing that she will be the president of all Moldovans.

Her opponent, former state prosecutor Stojanoglo, received about 45 percent of the vote.

Stojanoglo, who had the support of the pro-Russian Socialist Party, advocated closer relations with Moscow.

The president's national security adviser said yesterday that "massive interference" by Russia was observed in the electoral process in Moldova and that it has a "high potential to twist its outcome".

Russia has previously denied meddling in Moldova's vote, which followed a week after another key one in Eastern Europe, namely parliamentary elections in Georgia, which the country's president, Salome Zurabishvili, described as part of a "Russian special operation".

Sandu fired Stojanoglo from the post of state prosecutor, who denied that he was pro-Russian and close to the Kremlin.

The BBC reports that before the polls closed, both Sandu and Stojanoglo thanked the voters, and he addressed them first in Russian and then in Romanian.

Although Romanian is the main language in Moldova, Russian is widely used due to the country's Soviet past.

What is interesting is that the winner of this election, the pro-European president Maia Sandu, won more votes from the diaspora than in Moldova itself.

When asked if she was surprised that Stojanoglo won in Moldova itself, she said that voting in Moldova and abroad should be seen as one.

"We never divide Moldovans into those who live in the country and expatriates - we see Moldovans as one family," she added.

The former Soviet republic of Moldova, surrounded by Ukraine and Romania, is one of the poorest countries in Europe. It has a population of 2,5 million and 1,2 million people around the world where they live and work.

Moldova is a small country and is located in too sensitive a place to be able to resist influences from both the East and the West.

The war in neighboring Ukraine brought those attempts to the point of open conflict, which in a republic with a national structure where Moldovans, Russians and Romanians are practically equal in number, could cause a catastrophic development.

Especially because of the part of Transnistria, where the Russian population lives and which advocates secession and annexation to Russia.

In this part, Russia has military warehouses with weapons and about 1200 soldiers.