Linking Attack to Caucasus

MOSCOW — A day after an airport suicide bombing that investigators suspect was organized by Islamic militants, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin on Tuesday vowed retribution. President Dmitri A. Medvedev lashed out at low-ranking subordinates at the airport for failing to stop the attack. A number of initiatives were announced to prevent future terrorist acts.

Even so, the government seemed to be facing a bleak calculus.

None of its strategies for stamping out the long-running insurgency in southern Russia — neither the harsh measures favored by some in the security services nor the social programs and infrastructure projects supported by many policy experts — have yielded much success.

The bombing, which killed at least 35 people at the country’s premier international airport southeast of Moscow, came less than a year after two suicide attacks on the subway system here. In the meantime, the unrest in the North Caucasus itself — Chechnya and other Muslim regions — endures.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the airport attack on Monday, but the authorities made clear that they thought it was connected to the North Caucasus. There were conflicting reports about whether the bomber was a man or a woman, and whether accomplices were involved.

The government’s frustration at its inability to quell the insurgency seemed especially apparent on Tuesday in remarks by Mr. Medvedev, who unexpectedly turned his ire on the private management of the airport, Domodedovo. He went on national television to declare that security precautions at the arrivals area where the attack occurred were so poor that the situation was “anarchy.”