Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on July 2 2008 that Russia viewed the Kosovo precedent as an extremely dangerous and unsuccessful one, Tanjug news agency reported. The precedent would “apparently” be used by many separatist regimes in the future, he added.

Medvedev said he was surprised by the decision of United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to announce that the UN mission in Kosovo should transfer its powers to the European Union mission, a move made without the approval of the UN Security Council.

“We consider the Kosovo precedent as extremely dangerous and unsuccessful. We consider the decision made on this issue not as a casus sui generis, but as an absolute precedent,” Medvedev said, stressing that the UN force should have the main mandate in Kosovo and Metohija. “Europe will disentangle all this for long decades,” he told journalists from the G-8 countries ahead of the summit in Japan, Itar-Tass reported, as quoted by Tanjug.

Regarding Ban's decision, Medvedev said: “Such decisions should not be made by the UN Secretary General on his own, this is a competence of the Security Council. It is strange enough that the Security Council has not spoken out.”

Ban voiced his plans on the reconfiguration of the UN Kosovo mission in June, after Kosovo's constitution entered into effect on June 15, which marked the need to shift powers from the UN to the official Kosovar authorities and the EU.

Serbia, and its backer Russia, vehemently protested, since they fully oppose Kosovo's independence and all actions trying to justify it. Russia, one of the five veto-wielding members on the UN Security Council, has said it would block any decision recognising Kosovo as an independent state.