I am writing these lines with a packed bag by the door, about to head to the airport for Tirana. The invitation from the Albanian government came unexpectedly: a request to speak at an international conference on regional transformation and communication strategy, with a particular focus on Russian disinformation aimed at EU candidate countries such as Albania and Ukraine. Ukraine has a great deal to say on this subject from bitter experience. The trip is giving me a chance to step outside Ukraine’s daily challenges and look closely at a country that, not so long ago, was as closed off and misunderstood as Ukraine once was.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Albania is not a place many of us in Kyiv think about every day. Tucked along the Adriatic, it spent nearly four decades under one of Europe’s most isolated and paranoid dictatorships, ruled by Enver Hoxha and scarred by bunkers, suspicion and enforced conformity. Yet today, Tirana is one of the Balkans’ most energetic and visually confident capitals. I find myself thinking less about what I will say on stage and more about what Ukraine can learn from Albania’s long climb out of darkness, and vice versa. The parallel is not exact, but it is real. Both Albania and Ukraine know what it means to have identity, initiative, and civic life crushed by systems designed to produce obedience. Both have struggled with the corrosive afterlife of corruption.