The battle of Ukraine — despite American-led attempts to limit Ukraine’s ability to widen the fight and to cap the ability of Russia to use oil revenues to finance its side — is escalating.

President Putin pummeled Ukrainian cities Monday following explosions that hit two Russian air bases. The attack on the bases marked a new phase in Kyiv’s efforts to take the war to Russia’s backyard. 

Meanwhile a Western-imposed cap on Russian oil exports kicked in today. Although the cap was carefully calibrated to limit Mr. Putin’s ability to finance the war while avoiding sharp rises in oil markets, it appears to be failing on both counts. 

The Ukrainian military did not take responsibility for the explosions that rocked two major Russian air force bases Monday morning. To avenge the hit, Russia launched fierce new rounds of missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid and its major cities, including Kyiv. 

American-made arms were unlikely to have been used in the attacks on the Russian bases. Fearing a widening of the war, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, the Pentagon altered the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems it has delivered to Ukraine so as to limit the Himars range and prevent them from hitting targets on Russian territory. 

Nevertheless, the Ukraianians hit two military targets as deep as 600 miles inside Russia — including the Dyagilevo air base at the city of Ryazan, which is 150 miles southeast of Moscow. They may have been conducted by Ukrainian-made drones that can carry up to 165 pounds of explosives, one source told the Sun.

Kyiv, the source said, “is signaling to Putin that even Moscow is in range of its drones.” 

In addition to limiting the Ukrainian military to defensive war only, Washington is attempting to hurt Mr. Putin’s main source of income. Yet limiting Russia’s oil exports on the one hand could on the other hand spook oil markets, which could exacerbate an already high inflation. 

In September, the Group of Seven, Australia, and others decided to prevent countries from buying Russian oil at more than $60 a barrel. Soon after the cap kicked in Monday morning, oil prices rose by 2 percent to more than $87 a barrel. 

The cap was designed to limit Moscow’s ability to finance the war. “With Russia’s economy already contracting and its budget increasingly stretched thin, the price cap will immediately cut into Mr. Putin’s most important source of revenue,” the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said in a statement. 

At the same time the cap was also calibrated to avoid a sharp rise in oil prices, capping Russia’s oil exports at near market value at the time. The $60 cap would not suffice, President Zelensky said. He predicted that it is “only a matter of time when stronger tools will have to be used.”

Moscow seemed unimpressed by the oil cap. “We will sell oil and oil products only to countries that will work with us on market conditions, even if we would have to lower production,” the Kremlin’s deputy prime minister, Alexander Novak, said.

The Kremlin is likely betting that its top oil clients, including such American allies as India, as well as Turkey and Communist China, would ignore the cap. To address that possibility, Senators Van Hollen, a Democrat, and Toomey, a Republican, called in September to impose secondary sanctions. 

Their proposed measure would affect foreign banks that finance Russian oil purchases at a higher rate than the G7 cap. Secondary sanctions have been effective in limiting Iran’s ability to sell oil in the open markets. Other legislators are calling for tightening the cap on Russian oil exports below the current $60 a barrel. 

Russia, however, is threatening to cut, if necessary, production in order to sustain profitable oil prices. That threat is worrying economists who fear that if sanctions tighten any further, inflationary pressures will rise. 

Punishing Russia while allowing gasoline price hikes at home is akin to Sheriff Bart pressing a gun to his own forehead in “Blazing Saddles.” On the other hand, imposing mere symbolic caps on Russia hardly alters the course of the war. 

“It’s a very difficult needle to thread,” a Russia watcher with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, John Hardie, told the Sun. To be effective, caps on Russian oil exports need to be lowered and enforcement measures tightened.  However, “I don’t think domestic concerns should be discounted,” Mr. Hardie said. 

On military matters and sanctions, America and Europe decided to enact careful, middle-of-the-road measures. The result is that rather than lowering the level of its assault, Russia escalates; rather than limiting the war to its own borders, Ukraine attacks Russia; and rather than protecting Western economies against inflation, oil prices begin to tick up again.