Is Albania Looking Away from Serbia’s Arms Trail to Kosovo?

Sources, seizures and silence raise a disturbing question, could Albania’s pro-Belgrade posture be creating space for Serbia-linked arms flows aimed at undermining Kosovo’s security architecture.

Before I ever picked up a camera in a trench or filed copy from a front line, I was a teenager in Kosovo with a notebook and a list of names. More than sixteen hundred people were still missing after the war. My first experience of politics was not in a parliament or a newsroom, but in the quiet rooms where families waited for news that never came. Human rights were not an abstraction. They were the question asked every day. Where is my son. Where is my mother. Who is accountable.

Those early years shaped how I look at power. I learned to read between the lines of official statements, to listen as much to what was not said as to what was being said, and to treat every reassurance with a private question. Later, as I moved into journalism and then relocated to London, those instincts stayed. London opened doors that Prishtina never could. Private members clubs frequented by former diplomats, retired intelligence officials, and the sort of people whose real work is never advertised. In the corridors of the National Liberal Club and other similar venues, foreign policy was not a headline but a conversation over a quiet drink.

By the time Russia expanded its war in Ukraine, I was travelling regularly between London, Kyiv, Brussels, and the Western Balkans. In July this year, after another reporting season in Ukraine, I returned to London and re-entered that world of discreet conversations. Friends and acquaintances welcomed me back. Among them was a new figure. Over several encounters, this person, whose professional credibility I have reason to consider strong, shared information that caught me off guard.

They alleged that Albania, a NATO member and formal ally of Kosovo, might be allowing Serbia to use its territory as part of a covert weapons-smuggling route. According to this allegation, weapons financed through Serbian state channels were being moved from Bosnia and Herzegovina, through Montenegro, across northern Albania, and onward into Kosovo, where they were intended for Serb structures opposed to Kosovo Government authority.

I did not want to believe it. I asked for evidence. The individual could not supply documents that would meet legal standards. They did, however, share fragments of internal notes circulating in a security network. Nothing conclusive. Enough to justify continued inquiry.

I travelled to mainland Europe to test the claim with three separate contacts in the security field. Two said they had heard similar suggestions in international circles. One said it was plausible but unproven. Another said they had no knowledge and would look into it. A third said that whispers of such a route existed but could not specify whether they originated in London or Washington. The allegation remained unverified, but it was not treated as fantasy.