TIMELINE-Key dates in Kosovo's recent history

(Reuters) - Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday, ending a long chapter in the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia, but cementing a bitter ethnic frontline in the Balkans.

Major Western powers back moves by Kosovo's 2 million ethnic Albanians for their own state, nine years after NATO went to war to save them from Serbian forces. Serbia and Russia are opposed.

Here is a chronology of key events since 1989:

June 1989 - Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic uses the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, when the Ottoman Turks defeated the Serbs, to warn that Serbs will never yield control of the province. He starts stripping away its autonomy.

July 1990 - Ethnic Albanian legislators declare Kosovo independent. Belgrade dissolves Kosovo's autonomous assembly.

July 1992 - Writer Ibrahim Rugova becomes president of the self-proclaimed republic in clandestine elections. Albanians try to build a parallel state following principles of non-violent civil disobedience, and a Serb crackdown ensues.

1998 - A guerrilla insurgency by the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army gathers pace and Serbian forces are accused of indiscriminate and brutal reprisals.

March 18-19, 1999 - Peace talks in France end in failure.

March 24 - NATO begins bombing Yugoslavia.