> You will hardly ever find a mention of these demands in the media because it's considered advantageous to lead people to the conclusion that Russia wants to annex or occupy Ukraine indefinitely -- which they probably don't want to do.

You don't find them sometimes because Russia is extremely untrustworthy. Demilitarization just means it will be easier to annex Ukraine later. Recognizing the Donbas republics is nonsense as Putin's men have already admitted they plan to annex them afterwards.

There's a reason why you hardly ever find a mention of Poland's attack on Germany in 1939[1]. It has something to do with the fact that it's not real.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Himmler

Russia (or Putin to be precise) says that Ukraine is a fake nation. The goal was to unify Ukraine and Belarus as one country. The fact that Russia's demands are somewhat "smaller" now is just because their war didn't go as smooth as they wish it would.

The more they grab though, the stronger their position at the international negotiation table, to achieve what you describe as their goal. "You want us to withdraw from everywhere?? Nah ... The maximum we are willing to go for is withdrawing to the 'new republics'." And then some inconsequent negotiations may grant them that, thinking "Well it will be just as before then." And by agreeing to such a bad result to stop the bloodshed, Putin has got what he originally wanted. Maybe that is his long term goal and the redt is show for the west. An act to spread as much horror and terror as possible.

> there's no reason to believe that the Ukrainian government will give up once kyiv is taken

I agree. But they don't need to give up for a puppet government to be in place. They need to lose control of the military and communications infrastructure. If the government is far to the west or in exile, it's hard to see how they would maintain control.

And I also agree that a new government would need a substantial Russian military presence. It wasn't that long ago though that a substantial voting bloc supported pro-Russian parties. It's likely that Putin calculated that they'd only get problems with western Ukraine. That's likely been badly misjudged.