It looks like Putin tried the same approach as Soviets 1968 in Prague and 1979 in Kabul.
Take the capital city airport, land special forces there, Send them to take over the government figures and the strategical points.
Install puppet regime and overran the rest of the country with mass of poorly trained foot soldiers.
This has obviously failed already, as Ukrainian forces more-less neutralized these special forces to few isolated groups.
No mass landing of transport planes were possible.
So now, Russia military options are reduced to a long slough, probably looking for a lot of street fighting in Kyiv.
Nothing Russians are good at.
If this goes for a while, the Russians will probably run out of money/resources/will.
And, what Ukraine is counting on, that the Western/Nato forces will be outraged and come to their help ultimately.
It is starting to go that way.
At this point, Volodymyr Zelenskyy needs to survive. The Russians are trying to capture him. As long as he is alive, he is able to galvanize the Ukrainian population to fight the Russians. It is still early though. Fog of war and all that. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of weeks. But it would be in Russia’s interest to capture Kyiv quickly. I am not sure what is their plan B if their advance halts. They could probably stop and then surround Kyiv and allow the defenders to starve. But the Russians would be vulnerable to attacks if they have to maintain a large perimeter and they are not moving quickly to seize their objectives.
I wonder how many Russian troops will begin to desert?
The reports of mass casualties and captives keep coming in.
Putin may also decide to use more airstrikes, ballistic missiles, and other “safer” methods of attack.
He’s running out of options to save face.