Moldovan President Maia Sandu has issued a sharp public condemnation of a sweeping decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, warning that Moscow is attempting to use fast-tracked passportization to drag residents of Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region directly into the war in Ukraine.
The comments were delivered on Saturday during an official state visit to Tallinn, Estonia, where Sandu met with her Estonian counterpart, Alar Karis, to shore up European integration frameworks, Politico reported.
Dismantling naturalization hurdle nets
The geopolitical row centers on a presidential decree published on Russia’s state legal portal. The document radically alters federal naturalization frameworks specifically for foreign nationals and stateless persons aged 18 or older permanently residing within the self-proclaimed Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR).
Under the Kremlin’s updated terms, applicants from the unrecognized separatist enclave are completely exempted from major baseline statutory requirements under standard Russian citizenship legislation. Applicants no longer need to satisfy the mandatory five-year permanent residency period inside the Russian Federation.
The decree waives all prerequisite testing for Russian language proficiency, general history, and state legislation.
Transnistria residents can submit applications directly via existing Russian diplomatic missions and consular outposts inside the breakaway strip without ever entering Russian territory.
The executive order explicitly covers minors, orphans, and legally incapacitated individuals under institutional care. Historically, the Kremlin has utilized “passportization” schemes in Georgia’s occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as in occupied sectors of Ukraine, to engineer a legal pretext for external military intervention under the guise of protecting Russian nationals abroad.
A disguised mobilization mechanism
President Sandu directly linked the timing of the decree to Russia’s ongoing operational manpower shortages along the Ukrainian front lines.
“Probably they need more people to send to the war in Ukraine,” Sandu stated during a joint press briefing, framing the policy as a calculated tactic to threaten Chisinau over its recent successes in economically and legally reintegrating the eastern region.
However, Sandu revealed that the Kremlin’s passport drive is pushing against a reverse domestic trend. Since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, a significant majority of Transnistrian residents have flooded Moldovan administrative offices to secure Chisinau-issued passports.
Having a Republic of Moldova passport has become highly coveted as a legal shield against forced mobilization into the Russian Armed Forces or the Russian contract contingent managing local peacekeeper outposts.
Ukraine coordinates strategic countermeasures
The Kremlin’s unilateral shift has also triggered emergency defense assessments in Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelensky firmly condemned the passport decree, stating it represents “Russia’s way of staking a claim to Transnistria’s territory”.
Zelensky confirmed that he has ordered Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry to establish immediate coordination channels with Chisinau to finalize a unified response strategy against potential security disruptions along Ukraine’s southwestern border flank.
Despite the escalation, Sandu maintained a firm stance regarding Moldova’s trajectory toward joining the EU. Chisinau, which secured candidate status in 2022 and launched formal accession negotiations in 2024, maintains a strict institutional goal to sign a binding EU membership treaty by 2028.
When questioned whether the Kremlin could utilize the Transnistria dispute to freeze the country’s Western integration, Sandu dismissed Moscow’s veto power entirely. “Only the EU can decide whether Moldova can become part of the EU or not,” she concluded. “Russia has nothing to do with this”.
This aligns with recent declarations from EU High Representative Kallas, who reaffirmed that Brussels will not allow unresolved frozen conflicts engineered by Moscow to block Eastern European sovereign choices.