Lubavitche and Sqvare are considered to be Russian and there many other Russian Jews. They were perhaps prohibited from certain cities, perhaps St. Petersburg and the like ( I’m not sure, I didn’t look it up, I’m taking a wild guess here because you say Jews were not allowed in Russia), but certainly Jews were not expelled from the the whole of Russia.In fact, the Russian progroms were pretty notorious and caused thousands of Jews from Russia to escape to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century. Also, there were the Cantonists, there were Jewish Russian Communists… there was continued Jewish presence in over Russia for centuries.
You are partially right about Moldova. I made a mistake regarding I thought they speak Russian but they speak Moldovian ( or Romanian) and Russian and Ukrainian in different regions in Moldova. I thought they are exclusively Slavic but they not. However Moldova was part of the Russian Empire and I believe the many regions were the Jews lived in Moldova were dominated by the Slavic population and culture. If you do research you see there’s a lot of Russian influence in the records of names, organizations, etc. of Jewish communities. And so I am not saying for sure that I’m right, but I do believe Moldovian Jews had directs at least similar, if not identical, to Russian and Ukrainian Jews.
So being Romanian and close to Hungary it makes sense that they said ooh for the kumets, but for sure they pronounced the tzeirie as ay, not I, and the chirik as uh, not ee, like the Hungarians and Galicians do. Perhaps they were influenced by their Jewish brothers in Russia being close to them geographically as well.