{"id":1116315,"date":"2026-07-28T15:31:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1116315\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T15:31:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:31:19","slug":"the-threat-of-total-economic-war-looms-and-july-sees-highest-civilian-deaths-since-2022-ukraine-battlefield-update-day-1616-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1116315\/","title":{"rendered":"The threat of \u2018total economic war\u2019 looms. And July sees highest civilian deaths since 2022 (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,616) \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every day, the\u00a0Ukraine Battlefield update\u00a0newsletter offers a clear look at how the war is unfolding on the ground. Subscribe for free here<\/a> to get the full text delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

The headline of today\u2019s battlefield update may at first seem inappropriate.<\/strong> Russia has been waging total war against Ukraine since February 2022, regularly attacking targets in cities that include not only military infrastructure, but also energy and civilian infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it appears that in recent weeks Russia has further escalated its attacks on civilian infrastructure. This is probably a response to Ukrainian strikes on refineries and other targets inside the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n

And while ordinary Russians are beginning to feel the war in their own cities for the first time, conditions are also worsening for civilians living in unoccupied Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are entering a total war, and that is a major problem. Both we and they will have enough missiles and drones to systematically destroy each other\u2019s economies. As for ordinary daily life, very difficult times lie ahead,\u201d former Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said<\/a> in a video last week.<\/p>\n

He added, for example, that apart from the start of the invasion, Ukraine had not faced shortages of goods in shops and supermarket prices had remained more or less stable. \u201cThere will now be disruptions [to supplies of goods], because everything will be destroyed and flooded,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He later explained that he did not mean there would be food shortages, but rather that he was referring to imported goods.<\/p>\n

For example, over the past three weeks Russia has fired almost 200 missiles<\/a> at the port of Odessa and its surroundings, and exports effectively ceased for at least one week. According to the Ukrainian account Oko Hora<\/a>, foreign merchant ships stopped calling at Ukrainian ports.<\/p>\n

\u201cPorts and logistics hubs are now being destroyed on both sides \u2014 this is total economic warfare,\u201d Kuleba said<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every day, the\u00a0Ukraine Battlefield update\u00a0newsletter offers a clear look at how the war is unfolding on the ground.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1116316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7654],"tags":[217083,2000,299,218484,304290,218482,304288,218483,304289,657],"class_list":["post-1116315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-identifier24","tag-identifier4535","tag-nameukraine","tag-nameukraine-battlefield-update","tag-termcodeukraine","tag-termcodeukraine-battlefield-update","tag-ukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116998327338921185","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1116315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1116316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1116315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1116315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1116315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}