On August 25, 2026, Kosovo’s Special Prosecution Office indicted Fatmir Sheholli, accusing him of espionage and blackmail.
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The case has brought to the forefront a dilemma the state can no longer ignore: Did espionage end when the conflict ended, or did it simply take new forms?
According to security expert Drizan Shala, espionage activities did not cease with the war but were transformed, targeting institutions, political processes, vital infrastructure and sensitive data.
Shala emphasizes that, from a national security perspective, intelligence operations do not have a clearly defined end date. After 1999, Kosovo’s security environment changed profoundly, and the techniques used to gather information, recruit sources and exert influence evolved alongside it.
During the war, the main targets were military data, KLA structures and operational capabilities. Today, however, the targets have become more complex: state institutions, critical infrastructure, political processes, classified information, international ties and weaknesses within the system, he explains.
For this reason, a suspected espionage case should not be treated simply as a personal matter. It requires a broader counterintelligence analysis: who wants the information, what kind of data is being sought, which channels are being used, to whom the reports are sent and what the ultimate strategic objective is.
Shala warns that Kosovo is no longer facing the espionage model of the 1990s, but rather a more covert, dispersed and difficult-to-detect form. According to him, contemporary espionage no longer requires a traditional agent carrying secret files; access to information, the building of a relationship of trust, influence over an individual or institution and the gradual transfer of strategically important data are enough.
Furthermore, the expert underscores that the protection of national security must also begin within institutions, and that the main obstacle remains the timely identification of espionage networks before they manage to infiltrate and consolidate themselves.
Shala says the Sheholli case should yield a broader lesson: national security is not protected only along border lines, but also within institutions, in the fields of information and technology, and in spheres of influence. He adds that 26 years after the conflict, the true challenge of counterintelligence is not simply exposing a network after it has been discovered, but identifying early warning signs before it becomes consolidated, before a source enters an institution and before strategic information leaves the system.
In conclusion, the expert stresses that in modern intelligence warfare, the agent is not always the greatest threat; the highest risk is the network that no one noticed in time.
