Russian ambassador talks about Albania's support for Ukraine

Albania supports the Kiev regime by providing it with political, diplomatic, economic and humanitarian assistance. Russian Ambassador to Tirana Aleksey Zaitsev told Izvestia on February 14.

"The Albanian side is involved in the process of providing the Kiev regime with political-diplomatic, economic, humanitarian and other assistance. Thus, during the so-called International Conference of Donors in Support of Ukraine (Warsaw, May 2022) it was announced that the Albanian government allocated €1 million for Kiev's priority needs," the diplomat said.

Repeatedly in Tirana with the participation of the Embassy of Ukraine, local public organizations and entrepreneurs held actions to collect aid to Ukrainians, sent "humanitarian convoys" to Kiev, Kharkov, said the Russian Embassy in Albania.

"At the same time, the Albanian side completely ignores the war crimes of the Kiev regime, its terrorist attacks, atrocities of the AFU committed against the civilian population, including, for example, the recent mass shooting of defenseless residents of the town of Selidovo in the DNR or punitive operations of neo-Nazis against the civilian population in the village of Russkoye Porechnoye in the Kursk region," the Russian ambassador stressed.

Against this background, the trade turnover between Russia and Albania in 2024 decreased by another 10% compared to 2023 - to $41.8 million. According to the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), the main imported goods of the Western Balkan republic from Russia in 2024 were grain (about $31 million), fertilizers ($9 million), as well as petrochemical products and wood.

In addition, the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation between Russia and Albania, established in 1992, has not been functioning for a long time. Its last full-scale meeting was held in 2009, the meeting of co-chairs - in April 2019, summarized the Ambassador.

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Earlier, on February 13, Zaitsev said that in its foreign policy Albania firmly adheres to the Euro-Atlantic attitudes and the line of the West, consistently joining all anti-Russian sanctions of the European Union. He added that the country actively advocates the development of the so-called register of damage to Ukraine, on the basis of which it is planned to pay compensation to Kiev for losses incurred during the conflict.

Before that, on 7 February, French politician and leader of the Patriots party Florian Philippot said that Europe should stop supplying military and financial aid to Ukraine because further support could turn against it.