one hypothesis from the article is that Russia is saving its good bombs for a bigger war, which is troubling. but by doing so they're wasting planes, right? it doesn't make sense to me.
Other than in the US where russian Oil is like 3% of the used oil and russian gas is basically not used, in Europe no russian gas means cold houses and problems in the industry.
Similarly, if NATO starts politely performing military exercises near any of the other borders of Russia, Russia needs to be able to demonstrate that they have an army guarding said border.
It's more likely the russians are a) incompetent, or b) saving the bulk of the air force for a potential escalation of the current hostilities. One does not have to exclude the other.