What if Putin didn't miscalculate?
This article makes some interesting points: https://dnyuz.com/2022/03/29/what-if-putin-didnt-miscalculate/
That article is silly. It offers the binary choice that either Putin wanted to conquer the whole of Ukraine, or that the most important parts of Ukraine to him were the ones containing massive petro deposits.
On one hand I agree with a lot of that article's interpretation of Putin's goals and win conditions, but on the other that article makes it out as though Putin wanted his invasion to stall and suffer losses for some incomprehensible reason. That doesn't make sense at all. The better and faster the invasion goes, the stronger his negotiating position. The weaker Russia looks, the less likely he is going to get the concessions he wants.
I just don't buy the idea that he had to intentionally let a bunch of his troops get wasted just so he had an excuse to bomb civilians so that Ukraine would then be more eager to give him the territory he wants.
If he had the capacity to launch a successful invasion that rapidly pacified Ukrainian troops and resulted in Russian seizure of Kiev on day three he would have done it. And he still might well have then gone on to magnanimously release the territory he didn't want. The fact that he has a fallback bargaining position that allows him to hold what he was most interested in doesn't mean he didn't miscalculate or that making his forces look weak was intentional.