The threat of ‘total economic war’ looms. And July sees highest civilian deaths since 2022 (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,616)

Every day, the Ukraine Battlefield update newsletter offers a clear look at how the war is unfolding on the ground. Subscribe for free here to get the full text delivered to your inbox.

• The number of attacks on civilian infrastructure is rising. Former Ukrainian minister Dmytro Kuleba says a total economic war is beginning.

• Russians have destroyed all petrol stations on the road between Kharkiv and Poltava.
• The number of civilians killed in July has reached its highest level since April 2022.
• Fierce fighting is under way for Kostiantynivka; reports that it has fallen are false.
• A Russian soldier ‘captured’ the village of Bilyi Kolodiaz in Kharkiv region, but the video appears to have been manipulated.
• Videos of the day: fresh attacks on Moscow, details of a major Russian mechanised assault, Ukrainian robots versus Russian soldiers.

The headline of today’s battlefield update may at first seem inappropriate. 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.

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.

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.

“We 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’s economies. As for ordinary daily life, very difficult times lie ahead,” former Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a video last week.

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. “There will now be disruptions [to supplies of goods], because everything will be destroyed and flooded,” he said.

He later explained that he did not mean there would be food shortages, but rather that he was referring to imported goods.

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

“Ports and logistics hubs are now being destroyed on both sides — this is total economic warfare,” Kuleba said.