By Halyna Hergert | 2026-06-03

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on May 15 simplifying Russian citizenship for residents of Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region wedged between Moldova and Ukraine. By May 25, Moscow's embassy was already accepting passport applications.

The Kremlin framed the move as humanitarian -- protection for compatriots facing pressure from Chisinau. But Ukraine, Moldova, and analysts watching the region closely read it differently: as another tool in a long campaign to keep Moldova unstable and exploit its western neighbor's vulnerabilities as the war in Ukraine grinds on.

A corridor, a depot and a casus belli

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was direct. Russian citizenship automatically triggers military service obligations, he said on May 16, making the passportization a potential manpower pipeline. More broadly, he argued, the logic of the decree reveals the Kremlin's intent to claim Transnistria as its own.

"In Moscow, they often tell various interlocutors that they are supposedly only interested in Donbas. In reality, it is far more than just Donbas," Zelenskyy said.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu linked the decree to the war as well. Many young Transnistrian men had already fled to the right bank of the Dniester -- territory under Chisinau's control -- to avoid conscription.

"They do not want to be sent to this insane, brutal war. They all want to live in peace," Sandu said in a May 20 interview with Deutsche Welle.

The region's geography makes it strategically significant. Gennady Chorba, an opposition activist from the Transnistrian city of Bender, told Kontur that the region controls bridges over the Dniester River and logistics corridors carrying supplies into Ukraine. It also hosts the Moldovan Hydro-Electric Power Plant, which can supply a significant share of Ukraine's electricity, and the Cobasna ammunition depot -- the largest stockpile of Soviet-era munitions in the region.

But Chorba sees the passport decree as part of something larger: a deliberate effort to manufacture a pretext for escalation. Moscow had previously tried to push a "congress of deputies of all levels" in Transnistria to formally request absorption into Russia -- a move designed to reframe the conflict from a Chisinau-Tiraspol dispute into a direct Moldova-Russia confrontation.

"Moscow needs a scandal with Moldova; it needs a casus belli," Chorba said. He pointed to Russian drone overflights of Moldovan territory and a high-profile visit by Russian diplomat Oleg Ozerov to Tiraspol as part of the same pressure campaign. The goal, he argued, was to goad Chisinau into expelling Ozerov, which Moscow could then cite as justification for further escalation. Moldovan authorities recognized the trap and didn't take the bait.

Passports as pragmatism, not identity

Despite the Kremlin's fanfare, analysts doubt the decree will produce a flood of new Russian citizens — or soldiers.

Dmitry Levus, a political scientist and expert at the United Ukraine analytical center, noted that tens of thousands of Transnistrians already hold Russian passports. The decree, he argued, reflects Moscow's bitter reaction to Transnistria's gradual economic drift toward Moldova, not a new strategic breakthrough.

"Russia can no longer fully halt Moldova's movement toward Europe," Levus said. The risk of further destabilization attempts will grow as Moscow loses its leverage.

Evgheni Ceban, founder of the independent Transnistrian outlet Most, offered the sharpest skepticism. For most residents, a passport is a practical document, not a statement of identity. Transnistrians routinely hold Moldovan passports for visa-free travel in Europe, Romanian passports for working in the European Union (EU), and Russian passports primarily to collect pensions.

Ceban told Kontur that Moscow's claims of 220,000 Russian citizens in Transnistria look inflated. Voter turnout for Russian presidential elections -- despite heavy mobilization by local authorities -- has ranged between only 46,000 and 76,000.

"Given how hard Tiraspol tries to drive turnout for every Russian election, I don't believe it could sit at 25 to 30 percent," he said.

Mass mobilization of Transnistrians into the Russian military is equally unlikely, Ceban argued.

"Nobody in Transnistria wants to die for Putin. Even among the locals serving in the Russian contingent, most joined for the paycheck, not out of a desire to fight."

The Russian force in the region numbers just over a thousand troops and remains effectively isolated, with Moldovan intelligence monitoring the Chisinau airport for any military transit.

The four pillars are crumbling

Chorba described Transnistria's political order as resting on four supports: the Russian military presence, free natural gas from Moscow, the economic monopoly of the Sheriff Group, and a cultivated fear of Chisinau and Romania.

"If you knock out even one of these bricks, the entire structure begins to crumble," he said -- and the process is already underway.

Chisinau has been steadily removing those supports: cutting off cheap gas, reducing economic isolation, and eroding the monopoly of local elites. A new generation of Transnistrians is also coming of age with different reference points. People now cross the Dniester freely, work on the right bank, and see the gap in living standards firsthand.

"For many, this conflict has simply lost its meaning," Chorba said.