One of the big reasons why Russia is holding back a bit is because they do not want to reveal their entire deck of cards in the event NATO overtly joins. Clearly NATO is involved with Ukrainian units and command. Given what would be exposed I suspect Putin knew that it he would have to explore all options and the conflict would be drawn out. What I think Putin and the Russians were not prepared for was how willing NATO and Ukrainian high command would be to trade Ukrainian lives for time. But that shows how far the death cult cabal would go to protect what is really going on in Ukraine.

I do agree that Russia is using everything they have which includes economic tools to leverage an outcome that is in their favor. Meanwhile re-aligning geopolitical alliances which will not only ensure that Ukraine is a non functioning State. But in the process ensuring that the petro dollar is weakened and that NATO is depleted or defanged.

So the SMO to demilitarize Ukraine is also having an effect on weakening NATO's offense capabilities. I am not sure if Russia anticipated the weakening of NATO. But Russia remained flexible enough to take advantage of the overt over aggressiveness of NATO countries that try to prop up this proxy war with Russia.