Denis Sinyakov/Reuters Near the Park Kultury metro station in Moscow after the rush hour bombing on Monday. View slide show.

"The terrorists will be destroyed,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia vowed on Monday, after two female suicide bombers set off blasts that killed dozens in two Moscow subway stations at rush hour.

It had been six years since the last suicide bombers hit the city’s metro, and suspicion fell on pro-Chechen militants, who carried out the previous explosions.

As president and prime minister, Mr. Putin has been credited with reducing the terrorist violence in recent years after a consolidation of power from 2004 onward. Does this attack call into question the effectiveness of the government’s approach, or will it allow Mr. Putin to exert a stronger hand? What are the factors now at play?

• James Collins, former U.S. ambassador to Russia
• Paul A. Goble, Window on Eurasia
• Mark N. Katz, professor of government, George Mason University
• Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, research scholar, Stanford University
• Andrew C. Kuchins, Center for Strategic and International Studies
• David Satter, Hudson Institute

For Russians, It’s Relative

 James Collins, who was United States ambassador to Russia from 1997 to 2001, is director of the Russia and Eurasia program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The enduring and strong support given Russia’s leadership remains seemingly impervious to the series of terrorist acts of which Monday’s Moscow metro bombings are the latest event.

Even the present debate about police abuses of power and misconduct have failed to erode significantly the base of support for Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev, and polls continue to show their support at levels most political leaders could only envy.

The reason the terrorist acts like those in Moscow have limited impact can be explained by the Russian public’s evaluation of their leadership on criteria broader than their reaction to isolated terrorist acts. First and foremost, Russia’s population — even with the dramatically negative effects of the financial and economic crisis — is still living better and with more choices than it was a decade ago.

By Any Means Necessary

Paul A. Goble, who was an expert at the State Department on Soviet nationalities, comments regularly on the post-Soviet countries at Window on Eurasia.

The latest terrorist attack in Moscow is likely to boost rather than reduce Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s standing among Russians in much the same way that the terrorist attacks in 1999 helped launch his political rise. Putin’s K.G.B. past and willingness to use any amount of violence against terrorists then and now play well with an increasingly fearful Russian populace.

And the spiraling protest demonstrations in recent months under his successor, President Dmitri Medvedev may make the Putin years look good by comparison, again benefiting the former president and current prime minister.

Pinning the Blame

 Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University. He is a longtime analyst of Russian politics and foreign policy.

In my view, the principal effect of the Moscow metro bombings will be to increase the Russian public’s fear of and hostility toward their Muslim fellow citizens from the North Caucasus as well as from elsewhere in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Ethnic Russians are unlikely to favor a milder approach aimed at defusing Muslim discontent (which they may associate with Dmitri Medvedev), but want a tougher approach (which they would associate with Vladimir Putin). Still, the fact that these bombings occurred may increase the public’s growing dissatisfaction caused by corruption, police brutality, economic stagnation, and general malaise all of which they increasingly see as due to Putin’s style of rule.

The Russian public will want to see a firm response to these terrorist attacks. Initially, this may boost Putin, but if more such attacks continue and Putin is seen as unable to put a stop to them, it is possible that the public may see Putin’s rule as involving more and more costs but fewer and fewer benefits.

Failings of Putinism

Kathryn Stoner-Weiss is deputy director and senior research scholar at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She is the author of "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia.”

Many of the problems that Mr. Putin purportedly "solved” during his presidency from 2000 to 2008 endure today. Not the least of these is the separatist conflict in the North Caucasus region.

For the last 11 years, Mr. Putin has waged a sometimes hot war against Chechen separatists, finally declaring success a few years ago. Since ordinary Russians do not hear much about Chechnya in the news, they can be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Putin had solved the problem, just as they might have thought he solved the problems of Russia’s s weak economy, and fragile political system of the 1990s. He was able to oversell his accomplishments by shutting down media access to the region.

The Chechen conflict, in the meantime, has changed, but not ended. It has turned increasingly toward Islamic militancy — a component absent in the original Chechen uprising in the mid-1990’s. It has also grown increasingly creative and aggressive, putting the Russian population at grave risk.

Russia’s Vulnerability

 Andrew C. Kuchins is a senior fellow and director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The metro bombing, the biggest terrorist attack in the Russian capital since the Nord-Ost hostage taking in October 2002, sends a powerful message to the Russian people that everybody is vulnerable.

The symbolism of the attack located under Lubyanka, the building housing the state institution with most responsibility for protecting the Russian people, is reminiscent of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11.

If initial reports are accurate that this attack came from groups in the Northern Caucasus it is further evidence that escalating violence in that region over the past two years cannot be contained there.

Brutality in the North Caucasus

David Satter, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, is the author of "Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union” and "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State.”

Putin has been able to use terrorist acts in Russia to his advantage because he is adept at misrepresenting them.

The attacks on the Dubrovka Theater in 2002 and the school in Beslan in 2004, although horrifying, were attempts by Chechen rebels to bring about negotiations. The massive loss of life in both cases was not the direct result of the actions of the hostage takers.

It stemmed from the inexcusable decision by the Russian authorities to use force. In the case of Beslan, this meant the use of heavy weapons, including flame throwers, against a school packed with hostages, including hundreds of children.

The object of Monday’s suicide bombings was to kill innocent civilians but the attacks were not unconnected to the reign of terror organized in Chechnya by Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-supported president of Chechnya.