Tourists, businesswomen or spies?

The events in Gramsh and Poliçan are not the first time when Russian and Czech citizens pay unusual attention to military facilities and weapons factories in Albania and try to ensure their appearance.

Last year, Albanian authorities began investigating two Russian and five Czech citizens on suspicion of military espionage during the "Defender Europe 2021" exercise.

At that time, it was said that the Czechs had been photographing the NATO base in Kuçovo as well as the training of American troops in Durrës.

Two Russian citizens were also placed under investigation by the Prosecutor's Office of Tirana;

one of them, Vladislav Cherkasov, had entered the country on May 12 last year and a drone was found with him.

He had announced Durrës as his destination, precisely at the time when the important military exercise was taking place there.

Georg Budanov just entered Albania through Qafë Thana on March 1, 2021. He introduced himself as a businessman who was interested in investing in the city of Vlora.

But his activity, despite the secret information, is viewed suspiciously by investigators who suspect that Budanov stayed in Orikum during the time Defender Europe, one of the largest military exercises held in Europe, was held in Vlora.

The Russian was deported by the central border police on May 10, under the argument that he did not meet the conditions for staying in Albania.

The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted at the time with accusations that all this, according to it, was nothing but NATO propaganda.

Diplomatic relations between Tirana and Moscow have been cold recently.

In January, Albania expelled a Russian diplomat, Aleksei Krivosheev, for non-compliance with the rules of Covid 19. In 2018, meanwhile, two other Russian diplomats were declared "non grata", with the argument that the activity they performed was not in accordance with the status of their diplomatic

Russia then expelled two Albanian diplomats from the Albanian embassy in Moscow.

In May of this year, two British citizens were detained under suspicion of espionage at the Rinas airport, and radio transmitters undeclared to the authorities were found in their luggage.

They themselves came out pretending to be IT engineers, amateur radio/TCH enthusiasts