In geographical terms, Russia has actually expanded its war objectives. When determining war objectives, one has to look at public statements from political officials, rather than what analysts postulate (especially in this case, where there's a media war going on and certain western regimes don't hesitate to prosecute journalists whose reporting they find issue with).
Based on official statements, the Russian Federation initially believed that crushing the heavy concentration of Ukrainian forces in the Donbas would suffice to fulfill its political goals of demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine.
Then in April 2022, Russian general Minnekayev declared that from then on, the goal would be to extract the entire south of Ukraine from the control of the Kiev regime and to advance all the way to the border with Transnistria.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/russia...f-donbas-and-southern-ukraine---ifax/47536306
There is no evidence (let alone an official statement) to the effect that Russia aimed to take control of the city of Kiev at the onset of the conflict. In fact it is extremely unlikely given that 40.000 troops are nowhere enough to conquer an urban location defended by some 80.000 well equipped units, and the fact certainly wasn't lost on Russian decision makers. No serious professional military planner would envisage such an undertaking, the classic rule of thumb being that an attacking force needs thrice as many men to succeed against entrenched defenders ie Russia would have had to mobilize some 240.000 forces for this battle.
