Two blasts have gone off during morning rush hour in Moscow's underground subways, killing dozens of morning commuters. Via RT.com:

The first explosion happened in a carriage at the central Lubyanka underground station and has claimed the lives of 26 people, with more injured, informs RIA Novosti news agency.

The second blast happened at the Park Kultury Metro station in the third carriage of a train. 15 or more people are reported to be dead, the quantity of injured is unknown.

According to Russia’s Emergency Ministry, the first explosion presumably happened in the second carriage of a Metro train stopped at the Lubyanka station in the very center of Moscow, only several hundred meters from the Kremlin. At 9:30am Moscow time, the Emergencies Ministry gave the number of casualties as 20 to 25 killed and 17 wounded on Lubyanka station, and 12 to 15 killed and over 20 wounded at Park Kultury station.

Officials are investigating the possibility of suicide bombers and/or a coordinated terrorist attack. The video has some stunning photos and video taken by eyewitness and people in close proximity. On a Monday morning rush-hour commute, there's a high likelihood that many more have died than initially reported.

Telegraph.co.uk reports:

Though it has yet to be confirmed, security sources said early indications suggested suspected suicide bombers from the volatile North Caucasus region that includes Chechnya were to blame.

If that is right, it would be the first time since 2004 that they have struck the Moscow metro. Prosecutors opened a criminal case immediately, saying they would be working on the basis that the explosions were the work of terrorists.

Reporters are updating at RT.com as more information is known. Other sources: MSNBC, CNN

Update #1: Video shot of the scene above ground.

Update #2: CBS News now quotes Moscow mayor as attributing both blasts to female suicide bombers.

Update #3: Via STRATFOR:

According to STRATFOR sources in Moscow, the two locations of the attacks on the subway in the city are symbolic. The first attack in Park Kultury is symbolic in that it is one of the city’s cultural centers being located near Gorky Park. The second location of the attack at the metro station of Lubyanka is nearly under the Federal Security Bureau’s headquarters—former KGB headquarters—the security hub of Russia. According to media reports, the attacks were caused by suicide bombers at the peak of rush hour in Moscow. Thus far, rumors are flying that Muslim extremists are responsible for the attack. In the past, there have typically been spring-summer attacks in Moscow in February, and spring is just now arriving in the capital.

Even some of the denizens of the far Right are beginning to work out that the Russians aren't afraid of their bark and may just bite back in return. Witness manly man Mark Hemingway writing at The Corner on NRO:

(T)his should be a big story:

Russia has informed Norway that it plans to suspend all military ties with NATO, Norway's Defense Ministry said Wednesday, a day after the military alliance urged Moscow to withdraw its forces from Georgia.

... the NATO-Russia Council which has been active and productive for a number of years now. Russia severing ties with NATO is a significant step, and not necessarily for the better.

No, really? Could you explain it to the White House, where Bush is still trying to bluff on a busted flush? Today he told Russia they must leave Georgia "now" and the Russians basically replied "Gonna make us? You and which army?" And then there's this:

It was unclear if there would be any impact on a crucial aspect of NATO-Russian cooperation: the deal under which Moscow allows aircraft supplying the NATO-led force in Afghanistan to fly through Russian airspace.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was "not going to shut the doors" on cooperation with NATO, but he pointedly raised the issue of Afghanistan transit.

"After the famous NATO meeting (when the alliance froze contacts with Russia), some leading alliance officials were whispering in my ears: 'You are not going to halt the Afghanistan transit, are you?,"' he said.

As I say, busted flush.

Via Reuters:

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in one of his harshest attacks on the United States in seven years in power, accused Washington on Saturday of attempting to force its will on the world.

The White House said it was "surprised and disappointed" by Putin's accusations but added Washington expected to continue to work with Moscow in areas such as counter-terrorism and reducing the spread and threat of weapons of mass destruction.

In a speech in Germany, which one U.S. senator said smacked of Cold War rhetoric, Putin accused the United States of making the world a more dangerous place by pursuing policies aimed at making it "one single master".

Attacking the concept of a "unipolar" world in which the United States was the sole superpower, he said: "What is a unipolar world? No matter how we beautify this term it means one single center of power, one single center of force and one single master."

"It has nothing in common with democracy because that is the opinion of the majority taking into account the minority opinion," he told the gathering of top security and defense officials. Read more...

KY Herald Leader:

British officials said yesterday there was "sufficient evidence" to charge a Russian former KGB agent with murder and seek his extradition from Moscow in the sensational poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.

Litvinenko, 43, a vocal critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, was poisoned by the radioactive isotope polonium-210 and died Nov. 23.

On the day he fell ill, Nov. 1, he met with former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy for tea at a London hotel.

"I have today concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoy with the murder of Mr. Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning," Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald said, immediately setting off a diplomatic confrontation between London and Moscow.

ABC's The Blotter :

Respected Russian journalist Ivan Safronov, who reported on military affairs, mysteriously plunged to his death from the 5th floor of his apartment building Friday, making him the 14th journalist to die under questionable circumstances in Putin's Russia, according to statistics compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists. [..]

Polikovskaya's killing, the 13th since Putin took office, led the Committee to Protect Journalists to declare Russia "the third deadliest country in the world for journalists" after Iraq and Algeria in their recent report, "Deadly News." All of the cases remain unsolved.

According to a report in this morning's Moscow Times, Safronov, who wrote for the Russian business newspaper "Kommersant," fell head first and fully clothed from a 5th floor window although he lived in an apartment on the 3rd floor of the building.

The Times reported the FSB -- the Federal Security Bureau, which is the successor agency to the KGB -- was unhappy with Safronov's reporting on sensitive weapons systems.

Safronov's death adds to the list of critics of the Putin regime and the FSB, who have died or been injured in strange circumstances in just the past six months

Investor's Business Daily thinks Putin couldn't be this thick, but even NewsMax (hardly a liberal publication) finds it hard to believe that all these people connected to critics of Putin's are meeting their end under strange circumstances.

Sydney Morning Herald :

A Russian journalist renowned for probing corruption and the brutality of Russia's military campaign in Chechnya has been gunned down and killed in the lobby of her apartment building.

Anna Politkovskaya, 48, who had chronicled nearly every major story in Russia in the past decade, was killed on Saturday. Her reports often clashed with official versions of such events as the hostage crisis at a theatre in Moscow in 2002 and the bloody end of a school siege in Beslan in 2004.

[..]She was a harsh critic of President Vladimir Putin's rule and was working on a story about torture in Chechnya, where a Kremlin-backed strongman has all but routed a separatist movement that sparked two bloody wars, but at a cost to Russia that has yet to be measured. The article was to be published Monday, according to her newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, one of the few independent media outlets in Russia. Read on...

via Raw Story

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON - A six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements.

and Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader

The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay's political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Mr. DeLay's home state, Texas...read on

I guess this answers the question of why Delay missed the judge bashing conference.

When Drudge gets in on the fun, well...you know it's usually a picture of Michael Jackson or maybe a John Kerry mistress. Maybe this explains Bill Frist's "judges are nice people" statement earlier.