Moldovans have voted in parliamentary elections seen as critical for their future path to the European Union amid allegations of 'massive Russian interference' before the vote.
The claims, first made by Moldova's authorities, were repeated by pro-EU President Maia Sandu, who told reporters outside a polling station in the capital Chisinau the future of her country, flanked by Ukraine and Romania, was in danger.
Partial results will emerge in the coming hours, and the electoral commission said turnout by the end of voting at 21:00 (18:00 GMT) was just under 52%.
Two political forces are seen as almost neck and neck in the race: Sandu's Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) and the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc.
Another important factor is the more than 267,000 voters who turned out in the largely pro-Western diaspora. In a measure of the tension surrounding the vote, bomb scares were reported at polling stations in Italy, Romania, Spain, and the US.
Similar scares were reported in Moldova itself.
Moldova also has a pro-Russian breakaway enclave called Transnistria along its border with Ukraine, complete with a Russian military presence. Residents in this sliver of land have Moldovan passports and most are strongly pro-Moscow, but they have to cross the Dniester river to vote.
Moldovans have been buffeted by Russia's full-scale war in neighbouring Ukraine, but they are also grappling with spiraling prices and high levels of corruption.
President Sandu, 53, won a second term of office last November and warned Moldovans the future of their democracy was in their hands: 'Don't play with your vote or you'll lose everything!'
If her PAS party loses its majority in the 101-seat parliament, it will have to look for support from two of the other parties expected to get into parliament, the Alternativa bloc or the populist Our Party.
In the run-up to the vote, police reported evidence of an unprecedented effort by Russia to spread disinformation and buy votes. Dozens of men were also arrested, accused of traveling to Serbia for firearms training and coordinating unrest.
Parties sympathetic to Moscow rejected the police claims as fake and a show - created by the government to scare people into supporting them. Russia's embassy in the UK rejected the BBC's allegations, accusing Moldova and its 'Western sponsors' of seeking to divert attention from Chisinau's 'internal woes.'
At the edge of Moldova's separatist enclave of Transnistria on Sunday, a long queue of cars waited to cross the river to register their vote at 12 polling stations opened beyond the administrative border, some of them more than 20km (12 miles) away. Moldovan police checked documents and car boots before letting them pass. Most cars had several people inside, often whole families.
By mid-afternoon, the queue stretched into the distance beyond a kiosk with a Soviet-style hammer-and-sickle emblem on top, and the green-and-red striped flag of Transnistria.
Most voters expressed their desire for change, citing dissatisfaction with the current government's performance.
