As two Russian ambassadors, Mr Yuli Vorontsov from Washington and Mr Yuri Fokin from London, made their way back for "consultations" in the giant Stalin skyscraper which houses Russia's Foreign Ministry on Smolenskaya Square in Moscow, there were clear signs of a softening of the Kremlin's tough stance against the Anglo-American raids on Iraq.
The recall of the ambassadors and a vicious response in the Russian press have been followed by a series of reassuring statements.
In a telephone conversation yesterday with the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, having put his country's argument against the strikes, suggested a plan for working together to solve the crisis in what the British Foreign Office described as "the post-military phase". This was followed by statements from Russia's first Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Yuri Maslyukov, that relationships with the IMF would not be affected by the differences between Russia and the Anglo-American allies.
Russia should, Mr Maslyukov said, also go ahead and ratify the START2 nuclear arms reduction treaty.
Mr Maslyukov, it should be noted, had been a member of the Communist Party grouping in the State Duma until he became a member of the government.
Defence ministry sources have also stated that Russia's relationship with NATO will not be damaged by the events in Iraq but declared that their "sources in the region" have reported that the raids had not inflicted the damage claimed by the US and Britain.
These developments represent a pragmatic response to the current situation in which last night's raids have been generally seen as the last of the current campaign. They do not, however, represent a lessening of the real popular anger which has prevailed right across the political spectrum in Russia. The official condemnations from President Yeltsin and the Russian Prime Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, found ready support elsewhere.
Mr Vladimir Lukin, a member of the liberal and pro-western Yabloko party and a former ambassador to the US, described the action as "absolutely intolerable". A debate on whether Iraq had fulfilled "this or that UN resolution" provided no grounds for the bombing.
"Moreover, it is no grounds for the unilateral bombing of a country,' Mr Lukin said.
At the other end of the political spectrum the leader of the Communist Party, Mr Gennady Zyuganov, echoed popular opinion by saying: "The United States does not reckon with the Security Council of United Nations, nor with the world community, nor with Russia as a major nation."
The air strikes have been a stark and unwelcome reminder to Russians of their country's fall from super-power status.
Even Britain, traditionally regarded in Moscow as a "medium power", had been able to thumb its nose at the Kremlin. The air raids hit particularly hard at the sensitivities of Mr Primakov who, as foreign minister, had arranged Mr Kofi Annan's visit to Iraq which forestalled earlier predicted raids on Baghdad.
Mr Primakov is a Middle East expert who speaks Arabic and who lived in the Middle East, officially as a newspaper correspondent, for quite some time.
On the financial front Russia, whose economy has been in crisis since August, is owed $8 billion by Iraq from the Soviet era in which Baghdad was one of Moscow's closest allies.
A forecast rise in oil prices caused by the raids, which would have benefited Russia's economy, has failed to materialise.
Moscow's newspapers yesterday were far more extreme in their criticism than were the politicians.
One of the country's largest-circulation newspapers, Komsomol skaya Pravda, launched an antiClinton missile in the form of a headline which read: "Sleep with anyone you like, but don't bomb." The pro-communist Slovo wrote: "He wants to wash away his stains with blood."