While France and Germany -- who joined Russia in leading criticism of the US-led war -- both welcomed the fall of the Iraqi regime, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his key ministers remained conspicuously quiet.

The only comment to come out of Moscow after US forces swept into Baghdad on Wednesday came later that day, when a senior lawmaker said the city's capture was "predictable".

Yet analysts here said that Baghdad's rapid fall was far from expected by the Russian leadership, who had banked on a drawn-out war with high casualties to prove its anti-war position was right.

"No one had any doubt about how the war will end," Dmitry Rogozin, head of parliament's foreign affairs commission, said Wednesday, quoted by Interfax news agency.

"No one had any illusions about the fate of (Saddam's) dictatorship and its ability to survive," he said.

However analysts said that Russia's initial silence could stem simply from inability to react to an event for which it had not prepared and which it did not wish to see arrive so quickly.

"The way events unfolded was not at all expected by the leadership and the intelligence services are misinformed," independent defense analyst Pavel Felghenhaur said.

Russia "does not know how to act" now that its loud predictions of a protracted war with fierce Iraqi resistance have failed to come true, he said.

While Putin had toned down Russia's fervent anti-war rhetoric in recent weeks, he also repeatedly insisted that mounting casualties among US forces and pockets of Iraqi resistance proved the Russia was right in opposing the war.

"The rapid end to the war was a cold shower for Russian diplomats, who were hoping that the conflict would drag on, which would have given Russia a possible role as a mediator," said Yevgeny Volk, director of the Heritage Foundation think-tank.

"Russia needed a victory that was not as quick and not as obvious," he said.

"That is why they called this summit urgently to discuss how to act from now," Volk added.

Putin is due to meet French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Saint Petersburg at the weekend, as the anti-war troika aims to craft a strategy to see the United Nations win a role in post-war Iraq.

Both the French and German leaders welcomed the US taking of Baghdad, with Chirac saying his country was "delighted at the fall of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and hopes for a quick and effective end to the fighting."

Schroeder said he welcomed the "joyous signs" from Baghdad and that "each day that shows the end of the war is approaching is a good day."

Yet observers have long warned that the countries will likely be locked out of the post-war situation -- particularly of participation in Iraq's rich oil sector -- because of their fierce opposition to the US-led war.

"The situation is not good for Putin, who bet on the wrong horse," Volk said.

"As Russia is in the opposition, it has lost any chance of influencing the future administration and its economic interests in Iraq," he said.

Felghenhaur for his part said recent developments marked a "great crisis for Russia's foreign policy and for Putin" and France and Russia "must now find a new strategy" so as not to end up the "big losers" in the end.

SPACE.WIRE