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International Policy Digest: The many scandals of Monika Kryemadhi

2023-03-25 18:18:06Politikë SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
International Policy Digest: The many scandals of Monika Kryemadhi
International Policy Digest: The many scandals of Monika Kryemadhi

Monika Kryemadhi, now a deputy of the Freedom Party, once the former president of the LSI, is in the center of attention of the international media. Finally, there is "International Policy Digest" which has written a long article emphasizing that Kryemadhi was financed by the Russians.

Writing International Policy Digest

Last week, Monika Kryemadhi, the former first lady of Albania, made a strong return to the headlines of her country. The release of documents showing she made and received payments in 2017 from Russian oil businessmen with ties to the Kremlin has sparked a heated national debate about Russia's continued influence in Albania and the Balkans.

Instead of trying to refute the allegations against her, Kryemadhi tried to discredit and silence the media that originally published the documents.

The former first lady's apparent ties to Russian interests and the subsequent tactics she used to cover them up are just the latest example of a broader pattern of the growing insidious influence of Russia, Russian money and Russian propaganda in Western Balkans.

The payments received by Kryemadhi are said to have been made by a company controlled by Alexander Smizukov and Alexander Kaplan. Smizukov and Kaplan were revealed by Reuters to be behind a secret British company bidding to take over the main Macedonian oil distributor Makpetrol. After their identities were revealed, Smuzikov and Kaplan's bid was blocked by the Macedonian authorities.

The tycoon is also said to have made a payment to a company controlled by Vitaly Savvin, another Russian oil trader and former business partner of Smizukov. Savvin's Russian oil company was revealed by Forbes to be one of the biggest donors to Vladimir Putin's ruling political party.

The context of these transfers is important. The payments were made around the time of the presidential elections in Albania in 2017, when Kryemadhi's husband, Ilir Meta, was elected president and shortly before Kryemadhi and Meta led their political party, the Freedom Party (formerly LSI) in the parliamentary elections. LSI is the second largest opposition party in Albania and previously governed in a coalition with DP and SP.

At the same time, Russia unsuccessfully spent $500,000 to finance the DP in the same 2017 Albanian parliamentary elections, as later revealed by a declassified US intelligence document in 2022. While the reasons for Kryemadhi's payments are unclear, the timing and origin of the payments certainly raise a number of questions that require further investigation – especially given the subsequent revelations of Russian state payments to another opposition party linked to the SMI.

Instead of trying to refute the allegations, Kryemadhi tried to discredit and silence the publication that had originally published the documents. Contacts familiar with the matter stated that Kryemadhi threatened the media, an independent media outlet based in Brussels.

In addition, the publisher of the documents found itself hit by a malicious media campaign propagating fake news and defamatory accusations about the journal. Kryemadhi himself publicly made a series of baseless accusations about the news.

Moreover, these allegations were found to have been published on platforms owned by sympathetic individuals of Kryemadhi, her husband and their political party, LSI. An example of a portal that attacked the publication is Syri, an Albanian media website widely reported to be owned and controlled by Çlirim Peka, a close associate and known ally of Kryemadhi's husband, Ilir Meta.

The Western Balkans have found themselves at the center of a new battle for influence in Europe between the Kremlin and Brussels. Kryemadhi, for example, has Russian ties and appears to be using typical Russian tactics to stifle reporting on corruption: fake news, disinformation. This is in direct contrast to the EU's values ​​of transparency, good governance and accountability.

As Albania seeks closer integration and eventual admission to the EU, its European allies will be watching to see if the Albanian government will combat such malign influence with further transparency and accountability. If the Albanian government is sincere in its desire to adopt EU values ​​and eventual membership, it must address such flagrant examples of corruption and evasion of justice through transparent and thorough investigations in accordance with EU norms. of which they aspire.


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