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Black smoke from a burning oil refinery filled the Moscow sky. The city\u2019s four airports were urgently closed. And part of the busy highway that rings the Russian capital, a metropolis of 13 million people, was shut down.<\/p>\n
As Ukraine escalated its effort to bring the war home for Russians, the strikes on Thursday appeared to be the largest drone attack on the Russian capital since President Vladimir V. Putin launched the war more than four years ago.<\/p>\n
No deaths were immediately reported. But the large-scale assault seemed likely to feed fears among Russians that the Kremlin\u2019s ability to isolate society from the impacts of the war was sharply eroding. That would usher in a new stage for a conflict that has now\u00a0run longer than World War I<\/a>.<\/p>\n For days, lines have formed and rationing has been implemented at gas stations in dozens of Russian regions, as\u00a0persistent Ukrainian drone attacks<\/a> on oil refineries and processing facilities have threatened a fuel shortage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ukraine has\u00a0taken particular aim at Crimea<\/a>, the peninsula that Russia illegally\u00a0annexed in 2014<\/a>, with a range of strikes aimed at cutting off the region\u2019s supply lines. The Russian economy has also begun\u00a0suffering from the costs of the war<\/a>\u00a0in a way that the Kremlin had managed to avoid for years.<\/p>\n President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in a voice memo shared with journalists on Thursday, warned, \u201cIf Ukraine burns, then your Moscow will burn as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n