If the plotters of the Moscow metro bombings were hoping for a sharp Kremlin response, they will be deeply disappointed.
The twin explosions that killed at least 39 people on Monday will not lead to a stifling of political and civil freedoms or a revamp of the law enforcement agencies — as has happened after major terrorist attacks in the past, security and political analysts said Tuesday.
In addition, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has experience leading the country though terrorist crises, is unlikely to strip decision-making powers fr om the more liberal-sounding President Dmitry Medvedev, who dealt with a terrorist attack alone for the first time Monday because Putin was away fr om the capital, the analysts said.
Putin, who flew back to Moscow fr om a trip to Krasnoyarsk, said Tuesday that "eliminating" terrorists was the task of the security services. But he made no additional comment about the government's response to the attack.
Medvedev, in contrast, called not only for terrorists to be "eliminated" — a mantra he shares with Putin — but also for social and economic conditions to be improved in the North Caucasus, where the terrorist threat originates.
"This is a double-pronged task. It is very difficult to create proper, modern conditions for education and business and to destroy the corruption and clannish nepotism that has formed in the Caucasus over the centuries," Medvedev said at a meeting with human rights activists.
The meeting itself could be interpreted as a signal from Medvedev that he is intent to keep doing things his way. Putin, who has rarely met with human rights activists, oversaw a crackdown on them during his eight-year presidency.
Putin so far has not shown any interest, at least publicly, in spearheading a response to the bombings, said Sergei Markov, a United Russia deputy in the State Duma and longtime Kremlin spin doctor.
After all, Markov noted, it is the president, not the prime minister, who oversees the security agencies.
Medvedev also can sound pretty hawkish himself and has no need to leave the role of "bad cop" to Putin, said Irina Borogan, an analyst with the Agentura think tank.
Meeting with top judges earlier Tuesday, Medvedev pledged to consider tougher punishments for terrorists.
The promise resonates with the anti-terrorist policies that started taking shape in the Kremlin after Chechen militants seized hundreds of hostages in Moscow's Dubrovka theater in 2002. After that crisis, Putin's Kremlin pushed legislation through the Duma that toughened penalties for terrorism.
Putin responded to the Beslan hostage tragedy in 2004 by canceling popular elections for governors and the proportional system of elections for the Duma. Also, the Duma approved Kremlin-backed amendments allowing the authorities to keep terrorist suspects in custody for 30 days without a court-issued arrest warrant. For all other crimes, suspects can only be held for two days without an arrest warrant.
Anti-terrorism legislation continued to be introduced while the country enjoyed a period of relative respite from major attacks. In 2006, the Duma adopted a law allowing security services to suspend many civil rights, including the freedom of movement and the right of public assembly, in any area wh ere they conducted counterterrorist operations.
Later that year, the media law was amended to allow security officials overseeing anti-terrorist operations to decide how and wh ere journalists would collect information about terrorist attacks.
In 2008, the Duma banned jury trials for suspected terrorists, arguing that jurists too often acquitted the defendants.
Throughout the past decade, Duma lawmakers have also been constantly tweaking anti-extremism laws in the name of fighting terrorism. The laws, however, have been largely used to crack down on the opposition and dissent groups not involved in terrorism.
The mountain of anti-terrorism legislation leaves Medvedev with few options.
"The screws are now tightened to the lim it. Despite the terrorist attack, no measures will be taken to put further pressure on the opposition," said Maxim Agarkov, an analyst with the SK-Strategia think tank.
Several second-tier United Russia officials accused the opposition of fueling an instability that Monday's attackers had hoped to capitalize on. But no national leaders have followed suit.
Agarkov also said the Kremlin has little desire to make changes within government agencies, particularly those dealing with law enforcement.
"The Kremlin has come to realize that the state system, especially law enforcers, is degraded to such an extent that it is impossible to properly implement even existing orders," he said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombings, unlike the Beslan school hostage taking, which united the nation in horror and had a recognizable enemy — Chechen rebels — behind it.
"The latest attacks are not shocking enough to allow authorities to push through new restrictions," Agarkov said.
History indicates that the authorities tend to act decisively after terrorist attacks that directly threaten their authority, such as rebel raids on Ingushetia's main city, Nazran, in 2004 and Kabardino-Balkaria's capital, Nalchik, in 2005, said Borogan of Agentura. Those attacks prompted leadership reshuffles in regional law enforcement agencies.
The Moscow attack, however, poses no threat to the authorities and is unlikely to ignite any personnel, let alone systemic, changes in the security agencies and the Interior Ministry, Borogan said.
As a rule, terrorist attacks in themselves do not influence the Kremlin to make political and personnel decisions, said Yevgeny Satanovsky, a security analyst at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies.
"Terrorist attacks just give the ruling elite an opportunity to push through measures that would be met with loud criticism under ordinary circumstances," he said.
For example, the Beslan attack allowed the Kremlin to increase its influence over how the Russian regions are governed by scrapping gubernatorial elections, a long-time wish of federal authorities that had little to do with anti-terrorist efforts, Satanovsky said.
Any response to Monday's attack depends only on whether Medvedev and Putin had a political or legislative plan in the works beforehand, he said.