Il Nuovo Postiglione - 'A bad dream': Russian troops threaten Dnipropetrovsk

But now, the Kremlin's emboldened army has advanced and brought the fight right to the doorstep of her Dnipropetrovsk region, while raining down bombs with greater intensity.

"Some people still have this idea of a psychological border, they think that Russians won't cross," the 51-year-old shop keeper told AFP.

"We thought so too -- before gliding bombs hit us," she added in the village of Novopavlivka, one settlement in Russia's sights just over the border in the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region.

In the three years since Russia invaded, its forces have never broken through into the industrial region.

But emboldened by months of gradual gains, they are now just some four kilometres (2.5 miles) from its border and stepping up bombardments.

The restaurant right next to Rudokvas' shop in the village of Novopavlivka was levelled in one recent bombardment but one crumbling wall held with its still-ticking clock.

Suppliers have grown increasingly wary of making deliveries to her shop -- for now, fully stocked -- with Russian forces drawing nearer, she said.

"It's like a dream," she told AFP stepping over rubble and debris of the restaurant.

"I get up and think I'm dreaming. Was it a bad dream or is it my reality now? I just want it to be over, so that no one else feels this way ever again," she added.

- 'Photos with their corpses' -

Director of the New Geopolitics Research Network Mykhailo Samus argued any Russian breakthrough into Dnipropetrovsk could still take months -- depending on Ukrainian resources.

If Russia troops do cross, the gains would be more psychologically significant than strategic, he said.

"They'll try to cross this imagined border to show: 'you see, for the first time in the war, we are in the Dnipropetrovsk region'," he told AFP by telephone.

"Russia is a master at using such psychological effects," he said.

Vadym, a 35-year-old Ukrainian serviceman, was not worried about the Russian gains.

At a large sign and now a memorial with Ukrainian flags delineating the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk borders -- a popular spot for selfies -- he voiced optimism that any Russian advance would be temporary.

"Let the Russians take pictures here, sooner or later we'll just come back and take photos with their corpses under that same sign," Vadym said.

But in the nearby border town of Mezhova where around 5,000 people lived before the war, anxiety is setting in.

Residents are noticably tense said 29-year-old Polina Yakovenko, the manager of a popular cafe in the town's centre.

"It had once been so far away from us. We were afraid, but not like we are now," she added.

- 'Turn into a nightmare' -

Despite louder explosions and nearing fighting, Yakovenko plans to stay -- for now.

She said was was torn between keeping her seven-year-old daughter safe, whom she had just dropped off at music school, and her attachment to her home.

"This is where our friends are, where we built our life," she said, describing how she knows "every corner, every street" of her hometown.

She pointed at the cafe's piano, under which stood the empty container of a portable Javelin antitank system.

"This piano came from my home. It's a piece of my childhood," she said.

"It's all so dear to us," she said.

Rudkovas, the shopkeeper, said she had already packed the essentials in case she needed to make a hasty exit from Novopavlivka.

She wondered out loud what would happen if Russian forces advanced into Dnipropetrovsk and towards her hometown.

"What do they want? They'll just come to some place and turn it into a nightmare," she told AFP.

"And then they'll go to somewhere else where they'll create another nightmare, and so on," she added.

cbur-brw/jbr/cw

M.Lombardi--INP