Russia has warned that it is preparing measures to respond against the US and other Western countries that officially recognize Sunday's unilateral independence declaration by the former Serbian territory of Kosovo.
“We are speaking here about the subversion of all the foundations of
international law, about the subversion of those principles,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week in a toughly-worded statement outlining Moscow's attitude to Kosovo's independence.
The Albanian-populated province of Kosovo was seized from Serbia by NATO in a 1999 war, and has been administered by the United Nations ever since. Russia, which helped to negotiate an end to the war, claims that Western powers have ignored their legal obligations to maintain Serbia's territorial integrity.