Peacekeeping forces in Transnistria, as the implementation of the state’s function of ensuring the security of Russian citizens outside its borders

This article examines little-known and insufficiently studied events and legal facts related to each other and preceding the entry of the Russian peacekeeping contingent into Transnistria. Recently, especially with the election of M. Sandu as President of Moldova, anti-Russian rhetoric, various attacks and actions by the public authorities of the Republic of Moldova towards public authorities, non-governmental bodies and citizens of the Russian Federation have sharply intensified. The Russian peacekeepers stationed in Transnistria are also the object of such rhetoric. In Moldova, they demand the withdrawal of peacekeepers, while it is claimed that Russian servicemen are allegedly illegally on the territory of Moldova. The purpose of the study is to clarify the historical and legal prerequisites that were the basis for the entry of Russian peacekeepers into the military conflict zone on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, as well as the interpretation of the normative act regulating the legal status of Russian peacekeepers stationed in the territory of Transnistria. The subject of the study was the legal actions and facts that led to the need to introduce peacekeepers into the zone of military conflict, scientific publications on the subject under study. The research uses general scientific and special research methods: systematic, historical, dialectical, logical, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, interpretation, comparative law. The results of the study led to the conclusion that the requirements for the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers contradict the norms of the act in accordance with which they were introduced.