Kremlin Decree Simplifies Russian Citizenship for Transnistria Residents
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on 15 May simplifying the procedure by which residents of the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova can acquire Russian citizenship. the Kremlin is continuing to expand its “passportization” efforts in Transnistria to deepen Russian influence in the region, building the political-administrative scaffolding for future leverage in negotiations over Moldova’s European trajectory and over the security architecture of the western Black Sea.
Russia has used passportization — the mass issuance of Russian passports to residents of foreign territories — as a pretext for intervention in past conflicts, most notably in Crimea and the Donbas in 2014. Transnistria has hosted Russian troops since the early 1990s and has been increasingly squeezed by Moldova’s tightening alignment with the European Union following the start of EU accession negotiations in 2024. The Sunday decree is the latest in a sequence of low-profile administrative measures that follow the Kremlin’s pattern of layering legal status over a contested region before any political move. Ukrainian forces also advanced in the Hulyaipole direction over the same 24-hour window.