What Ukraine really needs right now though is some huge investment in demining technology, I honestly don't have a clue what they can do, sure they can get advanced tanks, jets, etc. But it feels like demining is still years behind and there's really not much they can do about it. I honestly don't know what we could make to take out huge swathes of mines in one go but perhaps we should be investing in it, as it's one of the few areas where Russia is seeing success.

Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army major general and fellow at the Lowy Institute, told the Times that mine-clearing technology in military warfare is not as advanced as what Ukraine needs to push past Russia's defenses.

Ukraine Needs Its Own 'Manhattan Project' for Clearing Minefields, Retired General Tells NYT

Absolutely! Feels like half of Ukraine's vehicle losses were by mines and even more because they can't advance faster with those mine fields so that they get hit by artillery. Without those damn mines there would be probably almost no Bradley and Leopard 2 losses at all and they would have taken already a huge area. 

Newest video from Kings and Generals about the War in Ukraine (up until end of July):

Sorry, I'm a few days late posting this one, so next one should come end of next week or early the week after.

Thank you, Cptn Obvious. Minefields (covered by artillery) have been and will always be the main obstacles for attackers. The simple rule is the more efficient/speedier your demining equipment is, the bigger it gets. And hence the easier a target for the defense. Ukrania has been trying to destroy the Russian artillery and weapon cashes behind the mine fields as much as they can, using its own artillery for weeks now. A serious problem is the lack of air force power support. Nowadays with the help of drone surveillance, cleared minefields can be "refilled" almost instantly by the Russians. And boy do they have artillery and mines in their stockpiles.

So the only option for the Ukranians is to use artillery to constantly weaken counter artillery, and immediately go in with mine clearing equipment closely followed by the attack forces. Without air support, this is a lossy procedure.

Weak statement of Turkey's government regarding the situation with the freighter. It's like "yes it has a Turkish name and is owned by someone from Turkey and is pretty much a Turkish ship but it doesn't operate under the Turkish flag so...not our problem!"

Sure, that's how you can handle it as well I guess. I guess Palau and all those other small Isles under which flag all those ships operate for economic reasons will help them instead.

F-16 for Ukraine approved by USA

Do you have a link as to where one can see those updates?

In the first week of fighting, Ukraine incurred major casualties against Russia's well-prepared defences despite having a range of newly acquired Western equipment, including U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicles, German-made Leopard 2 tanks and specialized mine-clearing vehicles.

Joint war games conducted by the U.S., British and Ukrainian militaries anticipated such losses but envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia's main defensive line, said U.S. and Western officials.

But Ukraine chose to stem the losses on the battlefield and switch to a tactic of relying on smaller units to push forward across different areas of the front. That resulted in Ukraine making incremental gains in different pockets over the summer.

Ukraine Offensive Will Fail to Reach Melitopol, U.S. Intelligence Says - The Washington Post

As expected/what most have been saying, it is clear that everyone underestimated the scale of Russia's minefields, Ukraine at the beginning of the offensive seemed to try to rush the Russians but there's mines literally fucking everywhere and it resulted in that big loss we seen at the start, that alongside demining technology being fairly outdated and Ukraine not having much demining equipment to begin with caused a change in tactics.

Now the new tactic appears to be attrition, Ukraine over the past few weeks have been absolutely decimating Russia's artillery with counter battery fire. Once Russia's artillery suffers enough of a setback then Ukraine can progress more safely through the minefields and I don't believe Russia will be able to keep up with replacing them after a certain point.

Unfortunately that means far slower progress, we're likely looking at another few counteroffensives in the future at least. OTOH Ukraine is making the tactically smart decision, they shouldn't rush anything just for the West's benefit, they absolutely should prioritise their soldiers lives and not do any Normandy style rush into a minefield like some in the West seem to want.

Sadly there are those in the West and media included who only care about colours on a map and not the finer details of what is the tactically smart decision so Ukraine runs the risk of some in the West eventually turning on them, especially in countries which keep fucking up their economy independent of Ukraine and they then without any thought blame Ukraine because it's the easy target, I don't believe it will be enough though, only the idiots.

Russia's tactic also appears to be that, their entire tactic now seems to be to hold what they have and hope that the West gets bored or Trump/DeSantis wins the US Presidency. It's very obvious that Putin is terrified by the prospect of having to do a full scale mobilisation. Maybe that would be a benefit to Ukraine and finally be the final straw for Russian's to revolt, they can already barely supply what they currently have on the field.

I for one would actually be happy with Ukraine just reaching Tokmak though or putting the coast of Azov within range of HIMARS, I even wonder if they should just ignore Melitopol for now and go straight down to Berdyans'k as it's way less fortified but I don't know what the best thing would be to do, regardless, it's fine if Ukraine doesn't take Melitopol in this offensive.

Reznikov said: “Today, Ukraine is the most heavily mined country in the world. Hundreds of kilometres of minefields, millions of explosive devices, in some parts of the frontline up to five mines per square metre.

“Russian minefields are a serious obstacle for our troops, but not insurmountable. We have skilled sappers and modern equipment, but they are extremely insufficient for the front that stretches hundreds of kilometres in the east and south of Ukraine.”

“At this stage of our de-occupation campaign we critically need more mine clearance equipment, from minesweeping trawls to Bangalore torpedoes,” he said.

Pete Smith, the Ukraine programme manager of the mine-clearing NGO Halo, and formerly an officer in command of all of the British army’s explosive ordnance disposal assets, said the level of mine contamination was “unrecognisable in modern history”.

He said: “What we’re witnessing is the heaviest landmine and unexploded ordnance sort of contamination seen certainly in Europe since the second world war.

“There’s considerable evidence of large linear minefields. The other day one walked along a 1.5km minefield with a TM-62 mine placed every 1 metre and that’s just one small part of Mykolaiv [a region in south Ukraine].

Smith suggested that even with 10,000 mine clearers it would take a decade to decontaminate the country. Halo has 900, largely locally sourced, working in Ukraine and plans to have 1,200 trained experts operating in the country by the end of the year.

Ukraine Desperate For Help Clearing Mines, Says Defence Minister | Ukraine | The Guardian