1) the Russian air capacity worked well for the kind of work it was intended and trained for, but close air support of an offensive operation against a near-peer was not what it was designed or trained for. This means it could bomb the bejeesus out of Syria or Ukrainian infrastructure from a distance, but not support ground troops.
2) we should not assume that the Russian air power would be equally incompetent if, say, we were engaged in an attempt to gain air superiority over Russian troops in a NATO vs. Russia war. That is the scenario which their air force (and its policies and procedures) were designed for, and thus it could be expected to perform significantly better than it has in Ukraine (where it has failed to establish air superiority, but has quite effectively denied air superiority to Ukraine).