WASHINGTON — Russia is again on a tear. This time, the Kremlin has stuck its finger in the West's eye over the long and painful effort to bring Kosovo to formal independence.
Unlike the fracas over an American missile shield in Europe, this conflict shows no signs of blowing over, and threatens to damage further the rocky relationship between Russia and the West.
At every turn, Russia has challenged Western efforts to facilitate Kosovo's independence. After a year of negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo, President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin rejected the U.N. mediator's report recommending supervised independence, prevented the Security Council from accepting that report, and insisted on three additional months of negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo — even after compromise became impossible.