MAGDACESTI, Moldova< Oct 19, (AP): On a frigid evening in a village near Moldova’s capital, President Maia Sandu warned locals of Russian meddling as she seeks reelection and touted joining the European Union as the only way forward. Her message came days before key votes that could help to determine the country’s future.

Sandu is seeking a second term in office in a presidential election Sunday in which she is opposed by several pro-Moscow candidates out of a total of 11. A "yes” or "no” referendum will also be held the same day on whether to enshrine the path toward joining the EU in the country's constitution. "This decision will influence our lives not only for the next four years,” the pro-Western president told the crowd from an outdoor bandstand in Magdacesti, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the capital, Chisinau.

"This decision will influence our lives for decades to come.” A campaign flyer handed out by young supporters at the rally said that criminal groups paid 15 million euros ($16.2 million) last month to 130,000 individuals in a major vote-buying scheme "to cause destabilization and chaos” in Moldova, a country of about 2.5 million.

The purported scheme revealed on Oct 3, which allegedly paid people through Russian banks, was linked to Ilan Shor, an exiled pro-Russia oligarch whose populist Russia-friendly Shor Party was declared unconstitutional last year and banned. It heightened concerns that Moscow was stepping up efforts to undermine the pivotal votes. Shor, who was convicted in absentia last year to 15 years in jail on fraud and money laundering in the case of $1 billion that went missing from Moldovan banks in 2014, denied allegations of illegally paying voters, saying "the payments are legal” and cited a right to freedom of expression.

Hours before Sandu’s appearance in Magdacesti on Thursday, Moldovan authorities said they foiled another plot in which more than 100 young Moldovans received training in Moscow by private military groups on how to create civil unrest, including using nonlethal weapons to create "mass disorder” around the two votes. Some received "more advanced training in guerrilla camps" in Serbia and Bosnia, authorities said, and four were detained for 30 days.