Original Russian-language document. Russian Federation official regulatory reference document governing simplified citizenship admission for residents of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic (PMR), the Russian-backed separatist entity in eastern Moldova. Included in the citizenship collection as a comparator and precursor document: Russia's Transnistrian passportisation programme (operational since the 1990s–2000s) is the operational template applied at scale in occupied Ukrainian territories after 2019.
This regulatory reference document governs the simplified citizenship procedure available to residents of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic (PMR, Pridnestrovie), the Russian-backed separatist entity that has controlled approximately one-third of Moldova's territory since the 1992 war. Russia has issued passports to PMR residents since the early 2000s, making Transnistria the earliest and most operationally mature instance of Russia's passportisation policy. The document is included in the citizenship collection as a comparator source: the Transnistrian model — mass issuance of Russian citizenship to residents of an unrecognised entity on a neighbouring state's territory — was subsequently applied in South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Georgia, 2002–2008) and then, at dramatically greater scale, in occupied Ukrainian territories from 2019. The regulatory provisions for Transnistrian residents differ from the Ukraine-related decrees primarily in the documentation required and the absence of the wartime enforcement mechanisms introduced after 2022. Understanding the Transnistrian precursor is essential to contextualising the Ukraine passportisation sequence as a deliberate and iteratively refined state policy rather than an improvised wartime measure.
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Title
On the Admission to the Citizenship of the Russian Federation of Residents of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic.
Scope
This document sets out the procedure for admission to Russian Federation citizenship in simplified form for persons permanently residing in the territory of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic who are Moldovan citizens, former Soviet citizens, or stateless persons.
Comparator note — Ukraine passportisation sequence
Russia's citizenship policy for PMR residents established several features that were carried over, with modifications, into the Ukraine passportisation programme: (1) acceptance of documents issued by the unrecognised entity (PMR identity documents; later DPR/LPR documents) as proof of residence; (2) three-month processing timeline; (3) absence of a requirement to renounce the previous citizenship; and (4) application to a population that remains formally the citizens of a neighbouring state. The key differences introduced in the Ukraine context after 2022 include: the wartime enforcement mechanism (conscription liability upon naturalisation; the April 2023 "regularise or leave" ultimatum); the scale (hundreds of thousands versus tens of thousands); and the use of formal annexation treaties to make citizenship automatic rather than voluntary. The Transnistrian model remained voluntary and individual-application-based; the Ukraine model after September 2022 became collective and coercive.