Kosovo's parliament declared Kosovo's independence from Serbia today by a unanimous show of hands. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica declared it a "false state." Discussion in the U.N. Security Council broke down when Russia said that there was no call to change the 1999 resolution that placed Kosovo under U.N. authority.
Celebrations broke out in Pristina as violence broke out elsewhere.
The declaration approved by Kosovo's parliament contains limitations on Kosovan independence as outlined in Mr Ahtisaari's plan.
Kosovo, or part of it, cannot join any other country. It will be supervised by an international presence. Its armed forces will be limited and it will make strong provisions for Serb minority protection.
Recognition by a number of EU states, including the UK and other major countries, will come on Monday after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, says the BBC's Paul Reynolds.
The US is also expected to announce its recognition on Monday.
Three EU states - Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia - have told other EU governments that they will not recognise Kosovo, says our correspondent.
Russia's foreign ministry has indicated that Western recognition of an independent Kosovo could have implications for the Georgian breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
As we've seen in the past few years, the Russian government has been trying to use separatist groups within neighboring nations such as Georgia and Moldova as leverage over those nations. Russia has troops on the ground in nominally Georgian and Moldavan territory, and has even lost some military officers, presumably at the hands of the Georgian military.
The Russian government differs, and dangerously, from the approach taken by its follow giant totalitarian state, China. Whereas China firmly clamps down on its own people and just as firmly refuses to get involved in the internal affairs of neighboring nations, the Russian government has chosen to use as leverage a problem that it itself has. It's unclear how Putin and friends plan to promote ethnic separatism in Abkhazia and South Ossetia without similarly promoting it in Chechnya, North Ossetia, and Kosovo.