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

Russia has voiced opposition to a fresh UN Security Council draft resolution on the future of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.

Once again the Western powers have attempted to find the right formula for compromise on Kosovo, and once again Russia has rejected it.

Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Russia would need "several days" to study a U.N. draft resolution designed to secure its support for plans to resolve the dispute over Kosovo's status, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency report.

The United States, France, and Britain have drafted a new resolution on Kosovo, which does not automatically grant the Serbian province independence after 120 days of multilateral negotiations, UN sources said.

A Pristina delegation has accepted U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's invitation to visit Washington July 23 to consider holding parliamentary elections in the Serbian province of Kosovo, a senior State Department official said Thursday.

Kosovo leaders have warned the European Union they are losing patience with attempts at the UN Security Council to reach a consensus on the future status of the breakaway Serbian province.

The United States and its European allies say they will present the United Nations Security Council with a new draft resolution this week on the future status of the breakaway Serbian territory of Kosovo. Victoria Cavaliere reports from VOA's United Nations bureau Russia has threatened to veto any measure that grants independence to Kosovo.

Further delays in resolving the problem of Kosovo could spark violence in the province and of elsewhere in the region, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned Tuesday.

Veterans of Kosovo's guerrilla war have said they are ready to take up arms again if the province is not granted independence from Serbia, RFE/RL's South Slavic and Albanian Languages Service reported.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says any resolution on Kosovo that is not acceptable to both Belgrade and Pristina will not pass in the UN Security Council, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reported.

The United States and Russia remain far apart on the issue of Kosovo. In this report from Washington, senior correspondent André de Nesnera looks at the conflicting views.