Ambassador in Moscow: We cannot speak about 1 million Moldovans working in Russia

Moldova’s Ambassador in Moscow Andrei Galbur said it’s not true that about 1 million Moldovans work in Russia. He made related statements in an interview for Radio Free Europe, Info-Prim Neo reports. “According to the Interethnic Relations Bureau, the figure is about 200,000 Moldovans. The official figures of the Russian colleagues say there are slightly over 400,000 Moldovans working in Russia, not 1 million. This figure may have been correlated with the volume of remittances. But these are statistics-related matters and we know that statistics differ depending on the organizations that deal with statistical data,” said the diplomat. Andrei Galbur also said that measures are being taken and discussions are held at different levels with the federal and local bodies of Russia to sign the agreement on readmission and migration. “It is a dynamic process and we hope that more pillars will soon appear in the legal framework of the bilateral relations, which will address the people’s problems,” said the ambassador. Some of the Moldovan politicians who are for Moldova joining the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union repeatedly said that there about 1 million Moldovans working in Russia. The Russian authorities said the remittances sent by Moldovans home amount to approximately US$1 billion.