Western officials on the Russia-Ukraine war, afternoon of April 29th:

Western officials: Russian missiles targeting Ukrainian rear areas but still only "fixed targets rather than dynamic" i.e., fixed infrastructure vs convoys. Also "significant number of failures"—"not as accurate as in all cases as they would either claim or would wish to be."

Wester officials on problems with Russian targeting: "They've got a lack of strategic intelligence [see next tweet] and the ability to employ their ... intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance [ISR] assets is very limited because of the threat posed by Ukrainian air defence"

Western officials: "we're...seeing an awful lot of the Russian forces using quite antiquated mapping, and in some cases using mapping from the 1970s which of course doesn't in any way represent the sort of target set that they're attempting to prosecute in Ukraine"

Western officials on Russian progress in Donbas: "we're still seeing some progress, but we're seeing relatively slow progress. In some instances...as little as a kilometre a day, in terms of terrain, which they're taking [with] really indiscriminate use of firepower."

Western officials on artillery: "whilst [Russia] being a bit smarter in how they're using their artillery, to use that artillery in support of those forces which are conducting those assaults, they're doing so in a way which is is putting the civilian population at enormous risk"

More on artillery: Russia using "far greater concentration of fires...more artillery pieces over a narrower front on a more restricted set of targets [with] devastating effect... what they're not doing as well as one might expect, is integrate surveillance & recon capability"

Western officials on Russian casualties: "we're seeing a slowing down in the level of Russian casualties...the overall numbers are reducing, but the level of casualties that we're seeing in terms of those areas where they are engaging Ukrainian forces are still...quite high."

Western officials: Ukraine "taking some losses [but] certainly not at the sort of scale [of] Russian forces. Also: "losses on Russian forces were assessed to be having a significant impact on the will to fight of wider Russian forces...Ukrainian losses are not affecting...morale"

Western officials on Russian civil-military relations: "one of the biggest challenges, at the operational level, is that...political interference in the execution of military operations has been significant", e.g. "insisting upon objectives being achieved by particular dates."

Western officials on Russian learning in Donbas: "we are seeing are some quite long, introspective moments where people are asking lots of questions about how this has all gone quite so badly wrong & how might they fix it." Sign of "some adaptions" but many problems to fix.