I think Putin will try to level all cities in Ukraine if he can afford to do this

In other words I think his efforts will be directed at killing every man, woman and child in Ukraine including inside of Kyiv.

This would be incredibly expensive to do but from his point of view it might be necessary to ensure the safety of the ancient Russian Empire from unraveling because of NATO.

He doesn't care about the democratic free world  point of view at all, only that the Russian Empire stays intact even if he has to kill everyone on earth to do that.

Can he financially afford to do that might be the only question?

And the answer might be that if he chose to use nuclear weapons he could potentially succeed at this and there might be nothing the free world could do to stop him realistically speaking without starting a full on nuclear war with Russia and China.