A barrage of assault drones had been downed over Moscow on Tuesday, the primary time civilian areas of the Russian capital have been touched instantly by the Ukrainian battle and a sign {that a} distant battle could quickly start to really feel considerably much less so for odd Russians.

The bodily injury was minimal, restricted to shattered condo home windows and a few minor accidents in an upscale neighborhood, however the psychological impression could show far larger for a citizenry that to this point has been in a position to go about day by day life with little thought for the bloodshed going down over the border.

“If the goal was to stress the population, then the very fact that drones have appeared in the skies over Moscow has contributed to that,” wrote one pro-war Russian blogger, Mikhail Zvinchuk, who posts below the identify Rybar.

The drones, numbering at the very least eight, got here as Russia has been engaged in a very sustained aerial assault on Ukraine’s personal capital, Kyiv. And whereas President Vladimir V. Putin blamed Ukraine for what he branded “terrorist activity,” nobody was killed in Moscow on Tuesday. The identical couldn’t be mentioned for Kyiv, the place one particular person died within the Russian assaults.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, mentioned Ukraine had not been “directly involved” within the assault however was “happy” to look at the occasions going down throughout the border. A spokesman for its air power, which generally maintains a coverage of strategic ambiguity over assaults on Russian soil, declined to comment.

Russian officers and Ukrainian allies alike gave the impression to be selecting their phrases fastidiously in responding to the assault.

While the United States has flooded Ukraine with army gear for the reason that battle started in February 2022, American officers have made clear that they are not looking for it used to hit Russian territory, lest the battle escalate.

On Tuesday, they appeared to hedge that place a bit.

The State Department and the National Security Council each issued statements saying that the United States doesn’t help strikes inside Russia “as a general matter,” however noting that Tuesday marked the seventeenth time this month that Russia had struck Kyiv.

Britain, one other Ukrainian ally, went additional.

Its international minister, James Cleverly, mentioned that Ukraine had “the right to project force beyond its borders” to undermine Russian assaults and that army targets past a nation’s borders are “internationally recognized as being legitimate as part of a nation’s self-defense.” Mr. Cleverly mentioned that he didn’t have particulars concerning the drone assaults and was talking extra typically.

In Moscow, the place the drone incursion raised questions on Russian air defenses, Kremlin officers sought to dismiss the seriousness of the assault, even whereas suggesting it could result in adjustments.

“It’s clear what needs to be done to increase the density of the capital’s air defense systems,” mentioned Mr. Putin. “And we will do just that.”

Still, a ruling celebration lawmaker, Andrei Gurulev, mentioned folks within the metropolis heart of Moscow had been extra more likely to be hit by an electrical scooter than by a drone. “We didn’t do too badly today,” he informed state news media.

The Russian Defense Ministry mentioned that 5 of the drones had been shot down, and that three had their alerts jammed electronically.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine final yr, after seizing territory there in 2014, it was anticipated to win rapidly and decisively. Instead, the Ukrainian army made Russia combat for each inch.

Now, greater than a yr after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, a collection of embarrassing assaults on Russian soil have proven that even at residence the Russians might be susceptible.

Ukraine has staged a brazen drone assault on army air bases deep inside Russia. A drone additionally hit an oil facility close to an airfield within the Russian province of Kursk. And earlier this month, drones exploded over the Kremlin, an assault that U.S. officers mentioned was almost certainly carried out by one among Kyiv’s particular army or intelligence models.

And simply final week, a cross-border assault in southern Russia by anti-Kremlin fighters stretched over the course of two days, doubtlessly opening up a brand new set of battlefield issues. The same assault was reported on Tuesday.

Russia is susceptible to drone assaults partially due to its measurement — the border with Ukraine is greater than 1,400 miles — but in addition as a result of its air protection radars are designed to detect plane and missiles larger than drones, mentioned Sam Bendett, an adviser on Russian research at CNA, a nonprofit analysis group based mostly in Virginia.

Apart from creating a way of vulnerability in Russia, he mentioned, Ukrainian drone assaults may serve to check Moscow’s air protection techniques and establish potential weaknesses that may very well be exploited in different assaults.

Part of the problem for Russia has been adapting the complicated air protection system that encircles Moscow to the threats of a brand new period.

“Previously, air defense systems near cities would tune out anything smaller than a helicopter,” mentioned Ian Williams of the Missile Defense Project on the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington suppose tank. “Small drones may have a radar return the size of a goose, so if you tune your radars to look for enemy drones, you’ll also see a lot of birds.”

Still, it’s unconfirmed that Ukraine was behind Tuesday’s assault, and massive questions stay about Ukraine’s drone capabilities

Last fall, Ukraine’s state-owned weapons maker, Ukroboronprom, mentioned it was near growing a drone that would carry a 165-pound warhead greater than 600 miles, placing Moscow properly inside vary, and that it had accomplished assessments of the weapon. But Ukraine has not introduced the usage of such a long-range drone in fight.

And on Tuesday, U.S. protection officers mentioned the following spherical of weapons despatched to Ukraine would come with missiles for the Patriot air protection system and extra rockets for the HIMARS cellular system. The $300 million army help bundle may very well be introduced as quickly as Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the top of the highly effective Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, mentioned the assault highlighted Russia’s technological lag in drone warfare, and renewed his tirade towards Russian army officers, whom he has lengthy accused of incompetence.

“What should common people do when explosives-laden drones are crashing into their windows?” he mentioned in an audio message posted on Telegram, including: “The people have full right to ask them these questions.”

Mr. Prigozhin famous that among the drones crashed within the neighborhoods of Russian political and army elites. “Let your homes burn,” he mentioned, referring to army and political elites.

Igor Girkin, a former paramilitary chief who had lengthy referred to as for an escalation of the battle in Ukraine, mentioned on Telegram, “The strength of the psychological blow caused by the drone attack on Moscow is not in the scale of destruction, but in the fact that the nation’s leadership has promised us not a war, but a special military operation.”

“Instead of an honest conversation with a nation, we get blurry consolations about Napoleon’s conquest of Moscow: Don’t worry, everything is going to plan,” he mentioned. “What is the real plan then?”

Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political scientist based mostly in Paris, mentioned {that a} lack of wartime management below Mr. Putin was changing into obtrusive.

“Everything is built on his often voiced idea of a ‘patient nation’ that understands everything and will endure anything,” she wrote on Telegram on Tuesday. “Let’s see.”

In Ukraine, the place incoming drones and missiles are commonplace, some checked out what was occurring in Moscow with grim satisfaction.

“It is great that they can feel what we feel every day here,” mentioned Samir Memedov, 32, an account supervisor in Kyiv who has needed to take shelter in a subway station throughout Russian assaults this week.

Another Kyiv resident, Yulia Honcharova, mentioned she had blended emotions.

“I’m not among those who believe that we should bomb their residential quarters at night,” she mentioned, “but I do want them to feel what it is like to live under constant alarms, like people live in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro.”

Reporting was contributed by Victoria Kim, John Ismay, Marc Santora, Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Andrew E. Kramer, Eric Schmitt and Anna Lukinova.