I don't think Russia ever wanted to take Kiev, just the ethnic Russian areas.
I don’t think Putin ever wanted to take Kiev either but the military operation he planned to carry out sort of grew organically due to the EU/NATO continuing to supply Zelensky with hardware and munitions. I think now in order to obtain his original objective he has to at least temporarily occupy the entire country to make sure its demilitarized.
“I don’t think Russia ever wanted to take Kiev, just the ethnic Russian areas.”
They CLEARLY did not, and even the Operatives know that. But wars almost always develop in unexpected ways, and so the Russians, at this point, likely have no choice other than to liberate Kiev (or Keev, for the Leftists).