"The prime minister of Kosovo has the hurt look of a young boy at school who thinks he's done everything he needs to fit in, but still finds that no one likes him. But still Albin Kurti, who sent the Albanian mayors to the 4 municipalities with a Serbian majority, despite the advice of international partners not to do so, has not regretted it...".
This is how the prestigious British newspaper, The Times, which interviewed Prime Minister Kurti at the weekend, begins its article on the situation in the north of Kosovo.
While recalling that the partners had punished him, with the exception of joint NATO exercises, the Times quotes Prime Minister Kurti as saying that the reward for this will be the final defeat of the ultra-nationalist president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic.
"We need the help of the US, the UK and the EU. But this help should not be in the direction of appeasing the autocrats", Kurti is quoted as saying.
As he has done in other pronouncements in recent days, Kurti defended his government's position to The Times, saying he was defending the rule of law and democracy, which could not survive if he surrendered to the harassment of a friend of Putin.
"The EU, USA, Great Britain, they know the democratic process of elections. If the mayor will not work from his office, where will he work from?"
He further said, for the daily, that he would hold new elections, as long as the Serbs promise not to boycott them.
The Times writes that diplomats suggest that Kurti is trying to present himself as a new Zelensky.
"They say that Kosovo is very different from Ukraine and that the Serbian enclave is more like Northern Ireland than Donbas. Asking the Serbs there to forget Belgrade is like asking the Catholics of Northern Ireland to forget Dublin", the British media further adds.