One curiosity through this whole thing that seems to have gotten memory-holed: Boris Johnson, playing the role of Henry Kissinger, killing an early peace deal and keeping this mess going. Putin might have been looking just to keep NATO out of Ukraine. If that was the case (maybe not, see above) then this extended war might have been avoided.
This is odd revisionism. You can look back at articles that took place during the negotiations in late March and early April and see exactly what the Russians were saying then. The big sticking point was that Russia wanted Ukraine to agree to giving control of the Donbas and Crimea to Russia[1] before any meeting between Zelensky and Putin, while Ukraine wanted to discuss those two during a direct meeting between the two presidents.
You can see the Russian foreign minister[2] as well as the head Russian negotiator[3] saying that Ukrainian proposals were unacceptable because they didn't agree to give up territory before Zelensky and Putin even met. A few days later, Putin called the peace talks a dead end because Ukrainians wouldn't cede territory and complained about crimes in occupied territories[4].
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-nazi-demand-for-ukrai... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20220407172040/https://www.reute... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20220403075439/https://www.reute... [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20220414093437/https://www.reute...