Russia's government wants to win the optics battle (for strategic reasons, independent of whether or not they care about civilian life, and independent of how much the Western media lies), and this means not rushing into places. We know the Ukrainian military has set up artillery next to their own civilians, and so simply firing back at them produces an unacceptable number of casualties. It's not as easy as everyone imagined.

I think one of the earlier predictions was that Russia wouldn't be occupying Kiev

ooh god no, i can't imagine what bloodshed kiev would've been if they tried to storm it. :sadness-abysmal:

I generally think everyone thought Russia would role up every major city quickly because it's what the us would've done.

At a cost of bombing literally thousands of civilians to death. Ie see Baghdad. Got it in a month with so many civilian deaths and injuries.

For whatever reason Russia has not selected indiscriminate shock and awe as a tactic thankfully.

They certainly could take Kiev if they were willing to do what's necessary. Doing so quickly would require a total war approach like the US and NATO love to employ: heavy bombing regardless of civilians and massive troop deployments.

Russia has not been taking that approach in Kiev at all, for whatever reason. We can be sure that it's a deliberate choice, though.

The ussr didn’t take all of Ukraine the first time they conquered it, relax and learn some history