Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed on Friday a claim by Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci that Moscow was getting ready to recognize the province as an independent state.

In an interview with the Serbian newspaper Politika on Thursday, a year and two days after Kosovo's declaration of unilateral independence, Thaci said Russia had positively assessed the current situation in the province and would soon recognize its sovereignty.

"I think Mr. Thaci is indulging in wishful thinking ... Mr. Thaci is the last person to make statements on behalf of the Russian Federation," Lavrov told a Moscow news conference following talks with his Serbian counterpart Vuk Jeremic.

Lavrov said Russia's position on Kosovo remained unchanged. Moscow supports Belgrade's view that Kosovo is an indivisible part of Serbia.

"I reiterated it today, and there can be no ambiguity here," Lavrov said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov has said that the quasi-statehood of Kosovo has merely intensified the existing problems.

There is growing unemployment, the economic factors are stagnating, integrative links within the province have been severed, while the dismantling of the social sphere continues, Titov said in an interview to the Interfax news agency, commenting on the anniversary of the secession of Kosovo.

The year since the unilateral proclamation of the independence of Kosovo has confirmed Russia's apprehension, he said, pointing out that it is clear it is not simple to pull the province out of its state of social-economic collapse.

The attempted sovereignization of the province has brought the entire system of the international presence in Kosovo to the very limits of further existence, Titov said.

Lawlessness and crime are rampant, clashes between clans have been stepped up in the fight for power, and radicals are yet again raising their heads, the Russian Foreign Ministry official said, expressing particular concern at the absolute negligence of the task to establish multiethnicity.