Another factor we should consider is that there seem to be a disconnect between the airforce and army units, they kinda seem to be doing their own thing rather than having a unified command structure where ground elements can easily call in airstrikes, rather that fire support role is largely filled by tube artillery.
While it has been a much discussed topic, recent communications show that the intensity of artillery fire has lowered since the offensives in the months prior where up to 60,000 shells were fired in a day, whether that is due to distributed nature of logistics for avoidance of HIMARS fires or Russia is actually running low on ammunition we do not know. Either way recent events may be the wake up call for the Russian aerospace forces to start taking on more risks, lest they become the next scapegoat to be blamed in case Ukraine keeps advancing.
Months prior, Russia was heavily using artillery because it was on the offensive first in Mariupol and then in Luhansk locations like Rubizhne, Popasna, Severodonetsk, and Lysychansk. Since July, until the Ukrainian counter offensive in early September, all was much more quiet on the far north front. Russia did not press on its advance from Lysychansk with a truly concerted effort to take Siversk and Bahkmut and indeed, in the Donbass and Kharkov, most of the fighting has been carried out by the Donetsk and Luhansk Militias, as well as Wagner, at much less intensity than the efforts to take Mariupol, Popasna, and the Severodonetsk Conurbation. In the South, such as Kherson and Zhaporizizhia, that is where Russia has concentrated the bulk of its regular troops.
The Russians are obviously having or had trouble deploying the necessary amount of manpower and materiel to quickly arrest the situation in Northern Donbass because they are slow. Carpet bombing a major forward concentration of the enemy's troops, even if the casualties are not great, sews chaos and confusion of the likes artillery cannot cope with. The Russians must be prepared to risk a few such runs on Siversk and Lyman. Russia has claimed Donbass as part of it's territory, so why such pusillanimity when faced with an onslaught on one's own supposed territory?
