``According to our experts and French experts, NATO is leaning towards the launch of a ground operation in Kosovo,'' Ivanov told mediapersons here.

Ivanov said the 24 US Apache combat helicopters dispatched to Albania and 20,000 troops would be involved in the operation. ``The goal of the operation is to separate Kosovo from the rest of Yugoslavia and install a provisional government,'' said the deputy chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, Yuri Boluyevsky.

Boluyevsky, who appeared alongside Ivanov at the news conference, said Macedonia and the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina would also be taken in the partition.

Ivanov meanwhile asserted that Russia does not plan to provide military aid to Yugoslavia, Moscow's Slavic ally.

Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Avdeyev will travel to Brussels onWednesday to attend a meeting of the contact group on the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo.

Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov separately called for a halt in NATO bombing in a telephone conversation with US Vice President Al Gore, a press spokesman said.