Albania External Relations Briefing: the Talk of the Nation: Russia's Potential Influences in Albania

ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 16, No. 4 (Al)

March 2019

Albania external relations briefing: The talk of the nation: Russia’s potential influences in Albania Marsela Musabelliu

1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin

Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01

The talk of the nation: Russia’s potential influences in Albania

The Balkans produces more history than it can consume. – Winston Churchill While the internal situation in Albania is in a roller-coaster of political divergence, to add more fuel to the fire, a new alleged threat is materialized in the public discourse: Russia. The country’s inclination and ambition to be part of the Euro-Atlantic institutions (NATO and EU) has never been disputed since the regime change and politicians from both sides of the aisle have been very careful to make this tendency very clear. This is a tendency deeply rooted in the population as well; in fact 86 % of Albanians desire for the country to be an EU member and 72% of them align with the pro-NATO tendency. The actors (and factors) coming outside of this realm are always viewed with suspicion and wariness.

Narrative buildup The primary intelligence agency in Albania, the State Intelligence Service (Shërbimi Informativ Shtetëror, SHISH) via the incumbet director Helidon Bendo, peresented a report on at a closed-door session at the Security Commission of the Parliament on March 11th. Mr. Bendo introduced to the PMs to a secret analytical report, highlighting that Russia has added attempts to boost its influence in Albania during 2018. Data on Moscow's efforts have been presented but they are not available to the public due to national security concerns. The majority of MPs have asked the head of the Information Service if this influence stretched to the high levels Albanian policymaking apparatus but Bendo's response has been negative. He has stated that SHISH does not have such information for the time being. It is also believed that with the upcoming opening of the NATO airbase in the country, these influences will be even more intense. First reports for Russia’s influence on Albanian Army were intercepted in 2005 and 2007, the information was made public ten years later. The content of this findings were not made public, however, the titles were presented to the media as: Russian attempt to influence internal affairs stretching from information gathering to active participation in recruiting Albanians citizens being part of the bureaucratic apparatus. These declarations of the chief of the secrets service arrive just 3 days after another high official of NATO made similar declarations to the American Congress. Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of the U.S. European Command and NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, testifies before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in

Washington on March 8. The top U.S. military warned that the Balkans are facing increased covert and overt pressure from Russia, and that Washington and NATO need to do more to keep the region from destabilizing. When he was asked by lawmakers on the Senate Armed Service Committee if there were regions in Europe facing new threats from Russia he stated: “The area I am concerned about today is the Balkans actually…Russia is at work in the Balkans and we have kind of taken our eye off the area. That is an area we could have problems with in the future. These efforts are affecting the integration of the region into the Euro-Atlantic structures, the European Union and NATO, which is their overall objective, and they initially do so through misinformation, through funds and support to some anti-government parties or anti-NATO factions in some Balkan countries, has increased for the last 6-8 months.” i The declarations of General Scaparrotti did not mention Albania specifically but the internal national discourse appropriated these comments and applied it to Albania itself – at the end the report was about the Balkans. However, what stimulated a more heated debate on the issue was the declaration of Prime Minister Edi Rama himself, on March 13th during the visit of Prime Minister of Northern Macedonia Zoran Zaev’s to Albania, on the stage of their joint press conference in Tirana. Rama stated: "Russia is not a fan of EU and its enlargement, and of course it cannot be supportive of any Western Balkan country, and this is not a secret because it is already known. In the meantime we have a national agenda whose main purpose is to unite into the European family. Every time this agenda is impinged whoever is not a fan of EU and NATO takes advantage, that’s it.” ii The fact that the Prime Minister was somehow admitting a potential Russian influence on dividing the Balkans from the West put a mark of recognition to suspicious voices. The narrative from that day on with regards to external affairs and national security has been only about Russia.

The opposition, the internal political crises and Russia The main question raised on the issue is: who is Russia actually influencing in Albania and what are the recipients of this influence trying to achieve? The target of this ‘Russia connection’ was immediately placed on the Democratic Party (and the opposition as a group), thus the current political crisis was linked to Moscow. A former prominent PD member, Frrok Çupi, notices a pattern, for Russian style of meddling in the Balkans, to disrupt and strike the parliament so that crises erupt (October 2016

2 in Montenegro strike on the Parliament, coup d’état; same preparation in Macedonia but didn’t find fertile grounds). He argues that Russian influences are now at their peak in Albania and either the Russians produced the current crises themselves, or they were enticed by the political fragility of the country now, either ways, he claims that it is the opposition that nourishes these influences. iii His analysis was echoed also by the fact that RussiaToday (RT), the Moscow led TV platform, covered intensively and widely the protests of the opposition in Tirana, while not the same airtime importance was noticed in the Western Media.iv

The PD’s lobbying in Washington and alleged connection to Russia On March 19th PD Chairman Lulzim Basha and former Secretary General Arben Ristani were summoned to the Prosecution office to testify on the US Democratic Party's lobbying contracts in the United States. A Letter of Notifications from US authorities requesting legal clarification on a specific lobbying contract. There was a total of 675.000 US$ which were used for lobbying by the PD in the spring of 2017, a few months before the parliamentary elections of that year held on June 25th. The Democratic Party itself has paid 75.000 US$ from its accounts for the promotion of its leader Lulzim Basha in Washington. There are three installments of $ 25.000, which have come out of the finances of the PD and are justified fiscally. The terms of the contracts indicated that the total amount would be used for meetings with US President Donald Trump, US congressmen and interviews in various US media outlets.v The main suspicion is the origin of 600.000 US$; this amount was subdivided into four different contracts, channeled through a company named Biniata Trade, whose ownership belongs to 2 Russian nationals. The PD has denied the accusation of Electoral fraud and claimed to never have paid the extra 600.000 US$, nonetheless, in the US the declaration of Biniata Trade claimed this amount arrived from the Albanian Democratic Party. Some has interpreted this event as a clear link of the PD to Moscow; however, there is an ongoing investigation on the matter and the entire news leak from the Prosecutor’s office is being highly politicized.

A larger context: the Western Balkans Is there really any fertile terrain for the Russian influence in Albania? Differently form the neighboring countries Albania does not have significant Slavic kinship; no direct, important economic ties with Moscow and no cardinal partnership. Yet, the Albanian situation should be viewed on a wider regional context: the Balkans.

A recent report of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Feb.2019) describes how Russia is asserting itself in the Balkans in in a variety of ways. According to the later, Moscow is trying to make itself more persuasive and attractive by highlighting Russia’s cultural and religious ties to the region, the other is by nurturing economic and trade relations in strategic sectors—like energy, banking, retail, and real estate—to create greater dependencies on Russia. To reinforce these efforts, Russia also seeks to exacerbate political and social fissures in several Balkan countries by giving money and public relations support to far-right groups. They are quite aware that the Balkans is the last part of Europe—before the former Soviet countries—that is yet to be fully integrated into Western political and security structures. So it hopes that by slowing down the integration process in the Balkans, it can prevent the West from renewing attempts to pull countries like Ukraine or Georgia into Euro-Atlantic institutions. The Kremlin does not see the Balkans as a region of vital strategic interest. Instead, it sees Balkan states as tools to influence broader European security issues. Russia’s overarching goal is to delay and complicate the expansion of NATO and the European Union (EU).vi Another similar report was introduced in March 26th form a conservative geopolitical think tank in Poland, the Warsaw Institute. The report claims that Moscow sees the geographical location of the Western Balkans at the crossroads of a united Europe and a hydrocarbon route running from south to east as its main asset. It tries to fuel ethnic and religious tensions, blocks reforms and supports extremely nationalistic and anti-Western circles. Russia is building its influence in the Western Balkans by strengthening economic and commercial relations in the strategic sectors: energy, banking, commerce and real estate. The construction and consolidation of Russian influence in the Western Balkans is manifested by the use of agents and local nationalist circles for destabilizing and even subversive activities.vii It is evident that scholars and analyst filled with suspicion towards Russia are very active in the publishing scene – only time will tell if these notions are correct or simply alarmist.

A last note Albania has been a Stalinist-style country from the end of World War II to 1991 and it was the last socialist republic to fall in Eastern and South Europe. Even though ties with the former USSR were cut in the 1960s, the cult of Stalin stayed strong in Albania, where until January 1991 there was city named after the soviet leader, the Stalin City. While Albanians were idealizing Stalin, Stalin himself was ready to make Albania disappear from the map of the Balkans. In 1944 (when Churchill had visited Stalin) documents of the time confirm that Stalin had told Churchill personally that Yugoslavia should annex Albania. viii It took Albanians 45 years to realize that Stalin was a threat – one can only hope, that if this is the case with Kremlin in 2019, the realization will not take that long.

i Available at: https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-russia-balkans-scaparroti-cyberthreat-/29087289.html ii Translated from: https://balkanweb.com/rama-pret-zaevin-tek-pallati-i-brigadave-pritet-konferenca/ iii Available at: https://tirananews.al/frrok-cupi-influencat-ruse-po-kulmojne-ne-shqiperi-opozita-viktime-ose- biri-i-tyre/ iv RT covered the protest in real-time and with wide commentary. For reference see : https://www.rt.com/news/4516 51-albania-storming-residence-protest/ v Available at: https://www.botasot.info/shqiperia/1051268/kontratat-e-lobimit-basha-e-ristani-ne-pro kurori/ vi Available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/02/13/is-russia-up-to-no-good-in-balkans-pub-78335 vii Available at: https://warsawinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Russias-Hybrid-Warfare-in-the-Western- Balkans-Warsaw-Institute-Special-Report.pdf viii DJILAS, MILOVAN. Conversations with Stalin. Vol. 63. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (1962): p.78.