After the invasion, the Russians have been on the defensive. Except for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the only Russian commander who’ve been able to go on an offensive in Ukraine.
The Russians are on the defensive to protect the areas they have secured in the special military operation. We should all pray that they don't change their minds.
The Russians werent on the defensive. After the defeat at Kiev and Kharkov in March-April, they redeployed, consolidated units, and tried to break through at Izyum and Mykolaiev. They did manage to push several columns (BTG’s) out of the Kherson bridgehead, but they could not supply them and had to withdraw.
The Izyum (April-June) operation was the most dangerous as it was meant to do the operational encirclement of the Ukrainian Eastern Front, but that bogged down.
And then there were the major attacks on the Donetsk front, May-July, taking Severodonetsk-Lysichansk, Lyman, etc. The attack on Bakhmut and the region around it can be seen as a continuation of that.
You need better news sources, son.
Russia is intentionally staying in a defensive position because Ukraine keeps feeding its soldiers into its meat grinder. Gee, fancy that, the objective is to defeat the Ukrainian military. That makes it easier to go on the offensive should they chose to do so.
The reality is Russia would be more than satisfied to liberate the territory that is now part of the Russian Federation so long as there are guarantees of future Ukrainian neutrality.