MOSCOW — The looming independence of Kosovo and promises of quick U.S. and European recognition have undercut and infuriated Russia at a moment when this oil-rich behemoth is eager to show that its global clout has been restored, analysts say.
Russian officials have spent weeks issuing dire assessments of the United Nations-administered province's upcoming declaration of independence from Serbia, expected to be made this weekend.
The Russians have repeatedly decried Kosovo's possible change in status as a "Pandora's box" that would destabilize Europe by setting off a chain reaction of shifting borders. They have blasted the West for embracing Kosovo's independence without taking the matter to the U.N. Security Council, on which Russia wields veto power.
But the world doesn't seem to be paying much attention, and underneath the bluster Russia has found itself relatively powerless to steer the situation to its liking. At a time Moscow is seeking to play the strongman again after a decade of post-Soviet weakness, this sudden impotence is tough to stomach.
"The Russian position, in the end, will be humiliation," said Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
In a last-ditch effort to stave off the declaration, Russia has called for an emergency session of the Security Council. But the U.S. and many European countries already have indicated their readiness to recognize Kosovo's independence.
The European Union is preparing to send a 1,800-member security and justice force to the province as early as this weekend, setting the stage for the exit of U.N. officials, who have administered the area since 1999, when NATO drove out Serbian troops seen as abusing Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanian population. Russia and Serbia say the EU mission is illegal.
Kosovo's independence is sure to dramatically ramp up tensions between Russia and the U.S., which are already at loggerheads over a proposed American missile defense system, Iran's nuclear program and the aspirations of several former Soviet republics to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Some Russian analysts describe U.S. support for Kosovo's ambitions as a blunder on a par with the invasion of Iraq.
"This will be used as yet another confirmation of the allegation that the West is not playing by the rules, that international law is applied very selectively, that there's a lot of hypocrisy in the Western position," said Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation, a Moscow-based think tank. "It's yet another manifestation that it's difficult, if not impossible, to deal with the West on serious matters."
