The Adriatic coast has become a flashpoint. Protests have erupted in the Albanian town of Vlorë over a planned luxury resort development backed by Jared Kushner, the former White House adviser turned private equity mogul. Locals say the project will erase a protected wetland and price them out of their own shoreline. But the unrest goes deeper. UK intelligence sources confirm that foreign actors are stoking the anger to destabilise one of the West’s most fragile Balkan outposts.
Documents obtained by this paper show that Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, is the lead investor in a €1.2 billion development that includes a nine-hole golf course, a marina, and 1,500 holiday villas. The Albanian government fast-tracked the permits after a meeting between Prime Minister Edi Rama and Kushner in October 2023. The land, a stretch of salt marsh and dunes, was reclassified overnight from a protected nature reserve to a ‘strategic investment zone’. Local opposition groups insist the designation is illegal under EU environmental standards, which Albania is supposed to be adopting.
The first protests began three weeks ago. They have swelled to thousands. On Wednesday, demonstrators clashed with police after bulldozers moved onto the site. But it is what happened behind the scenes that concerns Whitehall. A leaked Foreign Office memo warns that ‘hostile state actors’ are amplifying the protests through bot networks and funded misinformation campaigns. The memo does not name the state, but two intelligence sources point to Russia, which has long opposed Albania’s NATO membership and its hosting of a US drone base.
‘This is the new playbook,’ said a UK intelligence analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. ‘You don’t need to send in troops. You find a local grievance, pour rocket fuel on it, and watch the government burn.’ The playbook is familiar: the same tactic was used during the 2023 North Kosovo tensions and in North Macedonia last year. In Albania, the grievance is existential. Vlorë’s shoreline is one of the last undeveloped stretches on the Adriatic. Locals fear the resort will create a gated enclave for the ultra-rich, while ordinary Albanians are left with rising property prices and limited access to the sea.
There is also the money trail. Affinity Partners raised most of its capital from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The PIF’s governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, sits on the board of Kushner’s fund. Documents from the Albanian business registry show that a newly formed company, ‘Adriatic Luxury Ventures’, is registered at the same address as a shell company linked to a former Albanian minister under investigation for corruption. The paper trail suggests that part of the resort’s profit will flow through offshore accounts in the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus.
Edi Rama’s government has dismissed the protests as ‘organised hooliganism’. The UK Foreign Office has so far issued only a mild statement, urging ‘all sides to de-escalate’. But behind closed doors, diplomats are alarmed. ‘We are watching a slow-motion crisis,’ said a British official stationed in Tirana. ‘If this blows up, it won’t just be about a hotel. It will be about whether the West can hold the line against a new generation of hybrid interference.’
For now, the bulldozers are still running. The protests are growing. And Jared Kushner remains silent. But the money is moving. And where the money moves, trouble follows."
