FILE PHOTO: Moldova's President Maia Sandu attends a joint news conference with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continue, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 27, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
CHISINAU (Reuters) - Moldova may revoke the citizenship of its nationals who go to fight for Russia in Ukraine after being called up because they also hold Russian passports, pro-Western President Maia Sandu said on Monday.
Russia launched a "partial" mobilisation last week to reinforce its troops in Ukraine, and there are 200,000 people with dual Moldovan-Russian citizenship who live in the breakaway Moldovan region of Trandniestria.
Sandu said there was a risk that some of those people could be called up by Russia to fight.
"To prevent that happening, we are analysing the possibility of applying the process of revoking Moldovan citizenship for those people (with Russian passports) who fight on the side of the aggressor," Sandu said.
"We are also looking at the possibility of making punishment harsher for Moldovan citizens (without Russian passports)... who are in the ranks of the aggressor's armed forces," she said.
She said Moldova was holding consultations with Moscow to prevent cases of its citizens being called up.
Russia has had peacekeeping troops stationed in Transdniestria since the early 1990s when an armed conflict saw pro-Russian separatists wrest most of the region from Moldovan control.
(Reporting by Alexander Tanas, Writing Tom Balmforth, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
