2024-03-04 19:01:39
This content was published on March 4, 2024 – 6:06 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) Albania inaugurated on Monday an air base renovated and modernized with NATO funds, thus making its mark in a region shaken by the Russian invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
This installation, which will serve as a “NATO tactical air base”, was built on the site of a former base built in the 1950s with the support of the Soviet Union, near “Stalin’s city”. which regained its former name, Kuçova, 33 years following the fall of the communist regime.
Present at the inaugural ceremony, the Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, underlined the importance of this base which “goes beyond the borders of Albania”, in the current geopolitical moment.
It “constitutes an additional element of security for our region of the Western Balkans, which is not far, as we know, from the threat and neo-imperialist ambitions of the Russian Federation,” declared the head of the Albanian government.
The construction of this base, located 80 km south of Tirana, is considered the latest symbol of the shift to the west of Albania, which joined NATO in 2009.
But the Balkans do not all have the same position on the Alliance: Serbia and Bosnia have not joined NATO, nor Kosovo, where KFOR, the NATO force, is very present.
Four Alliance fighter jets, which took off from the Aviano base in Italy, flew over the new facility during the ceremony, before landing on its new 2 kilometer long runway.
Old Mig Cemetery
Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, NATO representatives, as well as Turkish, American and Italian diplomats attended the ceremony.
“The inauguration of the Kuçova air base demonstrates that the Alliance (…) is strongly committed to this region,” declared NATO representative General Juan Pablo Sanchez de Lara.
Reconstruction of the base began in early 2022, shortly before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This 350 hectare site was then the cemetery of dozens of old Soviet MiGs, Antonovs and Yak-18s, the last of which were scrapped in 2005 due to dilapidation.
Some MiG-19s were maintained at the site, a reminder of the country’s past and other alliances.
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