I think it's more about driving civilians out of targeted settlements so that the artillery can level potential defensive positions, than efforts to break the will to fight of the Ukrainian populace. The demoralizing effect of random shelling and missile attacks is a "bonus", rather than the primary objective of said strikes. Do the Russians really care about civilian casualties? Clearly not, but I think they're trying to maintain the facade that they do.
The Russians have a long institutional memory. They learned how difficult MOUT is 75 years ago during the battles for Berlin, Danzig, Konigsberg, etc. Their attempts at a decapitating "Thunder Run" during the first battle of Grozny and, again, during the Battle of Kiev, were costly, abject failures, so they've reverted back to just shelling cities into rubble before trying to seize territory.
"Light", preliminary bombardment prompts evacuations of civilians. Then the Soviets can go hard. Or maybe they just don't give a crap about civilian casualties, I don't know.
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