When the flag says NATO but the signals don’t: Albania’s ambiguity, Russia’s asset

Albania talks NATO while enabling Belgrade’s leverage and ports. From ‘cement’ cargos to status-neutral diplomacy, Tirana’s performance masks outcomes that serve Moscow and imperil Kosovo.

Albanian law enforcement detained a tanker suspected of illegally transporting Russian oil in violation of Western sanctions,” reported European Pravda in February 2023¹, after police impounded a Libya-flagged vessel at Porto Romano with 22,500 tonnes of oil under falsified documents. Investigators believed the cargo had been transferred ship-to-ship near Greece before slipping into Albania.

Two and a half years on, that episode looks less like an outlier than an overture. This autumn, an investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network described how sanctioned, low-grade fuel from Russia and Libya has been funneled into Europe through Albanian ports, disguised as “cement” or hidden in refitted hulls, with forged declarations and lax checks doing the rest. Within days, Ukrainian outlets amplified the findings, naming Porto Romano and detailing voyages by the Besart and the Aya Zanoubya that, on paper, carried building materials but in fact held hundreds of thousands of litres…