A years-long $58 million modernization of the Kucove Aerodrome was completed this week, with plans to renovate the facility announced in 2018, and construction work beginning in 2021. The unique harden facility features bunkers built into the local mountainous landscape, which were constructed in the 1950s during the communist period. The first aerodrome at Kucove was operated by fascist Italy after its occupation of Albania in 1939.
The latest modernization of the base reportedly included improving the facility’s security systems, including perimeter protection and fencing, renovations to runway lanes (including a fresh paint job), sprucing up base facilities and the control tower, and erecting a giant circular NATO billboard onsite. Photos from Monday’s base reopening ceremony showed Eurofighter Typhoon and Bayraktar drones parked on on the Kucove Aerodrome’s tarmac.
The base is expected to become a centralized hub for future NATO aerial operations, with its ability to host alliance aircraft complemented by logistical support and pilot training infrastructure.
Attack drone on display at Kucove Aerodrome in Albania during a ceremony dedicated to the airbase's reopening after NATO-funded renovations.
© NATO
“Albania is a logical decision because the country was formed by the Central Powers in the past, namely by the Hapsburg Empire,” Dr. Stevan Gajic, a Balkans expert and research associate at the Belgrade-based Institute of European Studies, told Sputnik. “In World War II it was a puppet state of Italy, which occupied it and was flexing its interests through Albania.”
“If we go deeper into the past, Albanians were the cornerstone of the so-called ‘Turkish units’ used to discipline, demoralize and attack and plunder Christians in the Ottoman Empire if they were not acting accordingly and if they would rebel against the Ottoman Empire,” Gajic said.
In that sense, an enhanced NATO presence in Albania is “logical,” according to the academic.
“First of all, for the historical reasons. Secondly, it is a friendly territory to NATO. And third is geography, because Albania is a mountainous country, which means it is easily defendable. That is why it is used…It’s just one of the pieces of the puzzle in what I would say is the strategic global war that NATO is conducting against Russia,” he said.
For Serbia, with which Albania has had decades of poor relations thanks to Tirana’s support for Kosovar Albanian separatists during Kosovo War of 1997-1999, the revamped NATO base is also bad news, given that Serbians are already living in a “hostile environment” in the region.
“As you know, Serbia is a neutral country that has had a war with NATO, it’s surrounded by NATO. And of course, naturally, Serbian people are very hostile to this alliance because its goal ultimately is to destroy Serbia as a country and Serbs as a geopolitical factor,” Dr. Gajic said.
The professor expects the base to mean “more pressure” on Belgrade to increase its defensive capabilities to levels comparable to those of the old Yugoslav People’s Army.
“Now we have a very small army of professional soldiers. But it seems this is not enough for us to sustain our neutral status. In order for our country to be neutral, it has to have the power of deterrence…The big question is, how sovereign is the Serbian government? But the logical answer would be to increase the amount of manpower and military equipment in the army,” Gajic said.
Dr. Gajic characterized the NATO base at Kucove as another example of the West’s “lying from day one” about its eastward expansion plans after the end of the Cold War.
“Basically from the moment that it [promised it would] not expand one meter or one step eastward, what we had was expansion of NATO that came in five waves. And now [in Kucove] this is only the remilitarization of territory that NATO has already conquered…This is the expansion of the infrastructure of a global war that is already going on between NATO and Russia. For now, for the moment, it is a proxy war,” Gajic said, warning that the recent inflammatory comments by Western officials led by President Macron of France mean the crisis could escalate into a hot war in Ukraine.