An adviser to the Serbian prime minister warned Thursday that Kosovo could become "a unique NATO state" if its status is decided on the basis of the Ahtisaari plan.

The Serbian prime minister said Wednesday that the plan by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, which would have ceded 15% of the Balkan state's territory, has failed.

Russia will veto any U.N. Security Council resolution on Kosovo that is unacceptable to Serbia, a senior Russian official said Thursday.

Veto-wielding Moscow will reject a new resolution of the UN Security Council, which proposes granting Kosovo independence without Serbia's consent, the Russian envoy to the UN said.

The Russian foreign minister dismissed remarks by a UN envoy Friday as inappropriate suggesting Russia's role at the UN Security Council should be reduced over its hard line against Western states' Kosovo plan.

Washington's ambassador at the United Nations says most Security Council members back a plan to grant supervised independence to Kosovo. But as VOA's correspondent at the U.N. Peter Heinlein reports, veto-wielding Russia remains opposed to the plan.

U.S. State Department officials say they believe obstacles to an international agreement on Kosovo's future can be overcome despite vocal Russian opposition to a United Nations mediator's plan. U.S. and other senior diplomats of the six-nation Contact Group on Kosovo met Thursday in London. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

The NATO allies have restated their support for the United Nations plan on the future of Serbia's Kosovo province, but have cautioned ethnic Albanians there against taking unilateral action.

The United Nations Security Council has begun a fact-finding mission to the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, led by Belgian Ambassador Johan Verbeke. The mission was initiated by Russia, a veto-holding member of the council that is strongly opposed to Kosovo's independence.

Moscow gave the strongest indication that it might veto the proposal of eventual independence of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo. A senor Russian diplomat said that this U.N. plan will not pass, local news agencies reported.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the UN envoy on Kosovo "will fail" if he pursues his current plan for the province.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica says that his nation's foremost goal is to block the United Nations-mediated plan on the future status of the country's breakaway Kosovo province.