Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)Two Russians and a Ukrainian were arrested for attempting to enter a military base and arms factory in southern Albania, the country’s defense ministry said on Saturday.
A Russian man identified only as M.Z., 24, was detained after entering the plant’s grounds in Gramsh, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital, Tirana, and taking photos, the ministry said in a statement.
Two military guards were injured by a “neo-paralyzing spray” used by the Russian man while resisting arrest, it said.
Another Russian woman, S.T., 33, and a Ukrainian man, F.A,. 25, were arrested outside the complex and their vehicle was blocked, the ministry said.
“Three citizens with Russian and Ukrainian passports tried to enter the factory,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The officers who were guarding the plant reacted immediately, but during their efforts to stop the three foreign nationals, two of our soldiers were injured.”
The two army guards injured by the spray were taken to a military hospital for medical care.
The Gramsh military plant opened in 1962 to produce AK-47, or Kalashnikov, rifles. After the fall of communism in 1990 it stopped production and instead began to dismantle old Kalashnikovs and other small weapons. It also repairs other army weapons.
“What pride for the military guards who neutralized three individuals suspected of espionage,” Prime Minister Edi Rama wrote on Twitter, adding: “Now let’s wait for the full clarification of this event.”
Albania, a NATO member since 2009, has strongly renounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has joined European Union and US sanctions against Moscow.
