Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti were spreading “open hatred against Serbs and Serbia”.

The pro-regime tabloid Informer said it was given an exclusive statement by Vucic who said that a campaign against Serbia has been coming from what he called foreign centers of power and part of the region for the past six months. “The most prominent role in that open, naked hatred towards Serbia and everything Serbian from Albin Kurti and Milo Djukanovic who are always using lies with only one goal – to portray themselves as victims and Serbia as the great aggressor,” he said.

He accused them of using Serbia’s purchase of Chinese FK-3 AA missile systems to say that Serbia is a Russian and Chinese ally endangering the peace in the region.

“They can’t say how we are endangering them with defensive weapons because the system serves to destroy enemy cruise missiles violating Serbia’s airspace,” he said.

“We would be better off buying anti-mosquito spray because it’s more important to protect ourselves from flies and mosquitoes than any of the serious air forces they have,” he said.

He said the goal is to “harm Serbia in order to always lay blame on it or keep it weak as they saw it when they declared the independence of Kosovo or when they portrayed Serbia as successful only when it was not asked about anything … when it was economically devastated 15 or 20 years ago”. He recalled that Serbia now is the only militarily neutral country in the region.

“Leave Serbia alone, stop lying, stop deceiving the public,” Vucic said.

Djukanovic and Kurti both voiced concern over Serbia’s recent arms purchases on Tuesday. Djukanovic expressed concern over Serbia’s extended tendency to buy weapons from countries which are rivals and enemies of NATO member states. Kurti warned that Serbia seems to be in a panic because it realizes that it can no longer be in three-four places at once and is trying to strengthen itself so that it can remain alone.