Yeah, it looks like they're simply not anticipating any long range strike. It would makes sense if they're certain they've taken out all of enemy's long range fire... which is clearly not the case here
I think this shows just how useless so called war experience is. Russian has been in Syria for many years, but experience in fighting irregulars cannot translate to fighting a modern army with nato support.... I'd say the PLA officer's experience in getting their asses kicked in Zhu Ri He is way more valuable than US military's decades of so called experience in playing wack-a-mole in middle east
I was never impressed with Russia’s performance in Syria. They stuck close to the one airbase and never really committed sufficient ground-forces to sustain any combined-arms operations. Their performance, on the ground, at Palmyra was far from exemplary!
I’m convinced that the Russians have no clue as to what they’re doing, now! Attacking cities when military commands, networks, installations, bases, and formations should have been the primary objectives, with individual units having mission threatening capabilities, such as dispersed anti-air batteries being secondary. Whichever units holed-up in the cities could have been dealt with after the threats in the field were neutralized.