Last week, a defence industry site in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro was struck by a Russian medium-range ballistic missile, which President Vladimir Putin described as a response to “NATO’s aggressive actions against Russia”.Early reports that Dnipro was hit by an intercontinental ballistic missile proved inaccurate.
Moscow’s deployment of the new weapon, named Oreshnik, followed a series of Ukrainian rocket strikes into western Russian territory using United States-supplied ATACMS long-range missiles, targeting military facilities in the regions of Bryansk and Kursk.
In his statement, Putin acknowledged that the Ukrainian attacks caused casualties among Russian troops.
“I’m scared,” said a young St Petersburg resident who requested anonymity.
Like many Russians, she has family in Ukraine.
“It’s especially infuriating because … my whole family is in Ukraine,” she told Al Jazeera. “When [Russian missiles] are flying there, it really sucks, and when [Ukrainian missiles are] flying here, it’s scary. There’s no happy medium in this situation.
“There was hope that everything would gradually begin to calm down because nothing has flown to my [Ukrainian] hometown, Zaporizhzhia, for a long time. And now it’s started again with twice the intensity. In my head is purely chaos, of course.”
But others appeared less concerned about the escalation, which some observers fear could transform into a Russian nuclear standoff with NATO.
“I don’t think rockets will fall either on Moscow or on London although [Ukrainian] drones are already flying over Moscow,” said Dasha, a Muscovite in her early 30s who asked Al Jazeera to withhold her surname.
“But you know when they say there will be a third world war, Russia will come for Switzerland, all of that, I don’t think so, but let’s wait …
