THERE IS SOMETHING alarming about the way Russian neo-Stalinist Vladimir Putin and his cohort revel in their obstructive behavior on the status of Kosovo. At the G8 summit, Russia blocked a compromise proposed by the French (no surprise there) that would have postponed a United Nations vote on independence for the territory in exchange for Russian recognition of its inevitability. Putin said, “I must say that our views on this problem run counter to those of my G8 colleagues.”

Back in the former USSR, Putin’s supporters launched themselves into an unrestrained victory dance. Russia postures with increasing flamboyance in favor of Serbia, insisting that Kosovo, with its 90 percent Albanian majority, must remain under Belgrade’s control. That evokes disturbing echoes of the contemptuous heedlessness with which the late Slobodan Milosevic treated the U.S.-led efforts to pacify the province in 1999.