Maven release plugin - how to publish only a snapshot?

I'm using maven release plugin to deploy new versions of software. When running

mvn release:prepare
mvn release:perform

Everything works as expected. If I tell maven to release version 2.1, it publishes an artifact 2.1 as well as a 2.2-20210205.061032-1, which I guess is some kind of snapshot. I'm wondering if it´s possible to perform a release for a new snapshot version ONLY?

The use case being that I have made some changes I want to publish for testing, before commiting to a final release. Something like 2.2-SNAPSHOT, or something like 2.2-YYYYMMDD.HHmmSS-X. When prompted by maven to enter the next version, if I enter 2.2-SNAPSHOT, it just repeats the question again.

Please advice on how to achieve this, or if I'm thinking about this the wrong way.