Well putins words and actions are pretty good indicator of what he wants - hes obsessed about restoring his version of Russia - which means assimilating nations like urkraine and others back into the fold. The military strategy is there for all to see - they were clearly unprepared for any sort of serious resistance and are now in serious trouble.
Unlike the US/uk and Iraq - I doubt anyone outside Putin's echo chamber thought invading Ukraine would be a good idea - whereas the the Iraq war was fiercely argued for by both the US and Uk governments and their media cheerleaders (a pre war propaganda campaign notably absent from Russia's build up to invasion) . And - militarily - they were correct in that Saddam's forces would crumble very quickly. What they got disastrously wrong was their belief that they could easily install a stable pro western regime and that the invaders would be welcomed as liberators (and that everyone would forget about the WMD nonsense).
I dont remember bush or Blair making long paranoid rants threatening nuclear Armageddon and "purifying" the country of traitors in pursuit of national glory.
You see this is where this rhetoric falls apart for me. If Putin had shock and awed somewhere on the other side of the world who posed no direct threat to Russia would this mean he was sane? That he was acting like a normal state? It's almost as if people are using the fact he didn't immediately unleash a firestorm on Kiev as evidence of his delusion, or insanity. And is reminding the West he's got a nuclear arsenal aimed at them any more paranoid than the fact the West has a nuclear arsenal aimed at him? Is that where the line is between meglamaniacal delusional insanity and a normal nuclear state lies, simply pointing out what is otherwise fairly fucking implicit - if you fuck with us we will destroy you. How do you think Bush and Blair would have reacted if the Kremlin had started making noises about a no fly zone over Baghdad in 2003, or started flooding Iragi forces with weapons?
And I'm not saying this to defend him in any way. I dearly hope he fails in whatever his aspirations are. But there seems to be a lot of assumptions being made about his state of mind and motivations which are not really backed by any hard evidence. I don't think that helps much in assessing what's actually going on. At the very least it is likely to lead to him being under-estimated, because I haven't seen any evidence so far that his tactics are irrational or delusional to the point it might cost him this war. Whilst there will have doubtless been mistakes, he's gaining ground without even risking his air force, something likely unthinkable to generals in the West. That doesn't look like someone rattled or panicking or delusional to me. He's not throwing the kitchen sink at this by a long long way and let's hope to fuck he doesn't.