The nations orchestrating Kosovo's independence from Serbia have splintered over a new report for achieving that goal, with Russia alone giving a cool reception to the idea.

The report remains confidential. According to diplomatic sources here, it studiously avoids any blatant references to the word "independence" for fear of stoking tensions - already high - between Belgrade and Kosovo, and between the latter's ethnic Albanian majority and Serb minority.

The much-anticipated report by Martti Ahtisaari, the United Nations special envoy to Kosovo, was presented Jan. 26 to the six-nation Contact Group on Kosovo (France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom and United States). Ahtisaari will travel on Feb. 2 to the Balkans to unveil the content of his proposal to Belgrade and Pristina.

As expected, all but Russia approved the report and its recommendations for organizing Kosovo's de facto separation. Allied with Serbia, Russia said it awaits Belgrade's reaction before drawing its own conclusions.

Whether that will be officially forthcoming anytime soon is an open question, however. Following Serbia's national elections Jan. 21, a new government has yet to be formed. However, nearly all parties oppose outright independence for Kosovo.

NATO troops are standing by if there's trouble.

During a Jan. 26 meeting of allied foreign ministers, for instance, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO "fully supports and will play its part in the U.N.-led process to resolve Kosovo's final status." The alliance currently has 16,000 troops to oversee the breakaway province's security.

Meanwhile, other regions of the world with separatist movements based on uncertain legal premises such as that of Kosovo are closely watching what happens in the Balkan province.

In the last year, for instance, Russian officials have made ambiguous statements about any imposed independence for Kosovo and the implications for territories such as Moldovo's breakaway Transdnistria province or the Caucasus' three so-called frozen conflicts - South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabach, the Armenian-ethnic enclave which Azerbaijan lost to Armenia in 1994. Moscow tacitly supports Transdnistria's declaration of independence, which the United Nations does not recognize.

Armenia's Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan said last week in Yerevan that "fresh thinking about Nagorno-Karabach's status" was needed and that "the conventional legal treaties and conventions of the past 100 years do not apply to today's situation" in the enclave.

Armenia effectively incorporated Nagorno-Karabach into its territory as a separate entity, though the international community does not recognize the enclave's independence.