Thousands of Russians slip into EU with fake Romanian passports

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of Russian citizens have illegally acquired Romanian citizenship, publication wrote.

These schemes were designed either to bypass sanctions or to gain the ability to live and work inside the EU.

Authorities estimated that more than 18,700 people from former Soviet republics have registered fake residential addresses in Romania, with some already receiving Romanian passports.

Journalistic investigations and court sources found that in some cases, Russians even stole the identities of Ukrainian soldiers killed on the front line.

Le Monde noted that the mechanism enabling mass citizenship acquisition has existed for decades. Since 1991, Romania has offered a legal “restoration” procedure for those who can prove their ancestors were born or lived within the borders of the former Kingdom of Romania between 1918 and 1940 — including present-day Moldova and some areas in Ukraine's Odesa and Chernivtsi oblasts.

According to the report, one hub of the fraudulent network was the village of Vârful Câmpului, near the Ukrainian border. The village’s official “population” surged from 3,420 in 2011 to over 7,000 in 2021.

In November 2024, investigators discovered that this growth was fabricated: nearly 10,000 Moldovan, Ukrainian, and Russian citizens had been registered there through fictitious addresses.

The investigation found that for years, employees in two civil registry offices produced fake documents in exchange for bribes, working with local collaborators.

Over time, organized groups emerged, exploiting loopholes in the administrative system to issue fraudulent papers. They advertise openly: social networks are filled with Russian-language promotions offering “European citizenship” and promising an "comfortable life in the EU".

"Obtaining a Romanian passport cost €4,000–€7,000 
($4,300–$7,500), occasionally with 'seasonal' or Christmas discounts," Le Monde clarified.

In 2023, Russians filed 6,658 applications for citizenship “restoration,” and another 4,574 in 2024.

To compare: from 2012 to February 2022, only 5,262 applications were submitted. 

Applications from Belarusian citizens also rose sharply — from 95 in 2020 to 605 in 2024.

Russian propagandist Ksenia Sobchak promoted one this agency in a 2023 YouTube video. Despite claims of legality, many of these agencies rely on well-established criminal schemes involving Ukrainian and Moldovan intermediaries and corrupt Romanian officials, the report said.

Because many archives were destroyed during World War II and the Soviet era, fraudsters easily invent family histories — claiming, for example, that a client’s grandmother was born in Chernivtsi or Chișinău when those territories belonged to Romania. These forged documents are sometimes even certified by official institutions that lack the capacity to verify them thoroughly, Le Monde noted.

Romania’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced the unmasking of a criminal group formed in 2022, consisting of seven Ukrainian citizens working with local lawyers and officials. In 2025 alone, the group submitted more than 900 applications for Romanian citizenship using forged documents.

The report added that the latest searches in the case took place on Dec. 18, 2025, including in the mayor’s office of Bucharest’s 6th district. Earlier in the autumn, the municipality canceled 68 illegally issued passports, while roughly 300 cases remain under review.