He certainly sounds insane, but it’s not clear where we draw the line between insanity and somebody who is desperate. If he ends the war, he will likely end up dead. Seems like he had a grandiose dream of him reconstituting the size of the USSR, and used the only skills he had - killing people and creating a criminal empire. Similar to Donald Trump, he seems to believe since he was a child, that just about everybody is a criminal one way or a other, and it’s just survival of the fittest.

He is telling crazy lies because some people will actually believe it. And again like Donald Trump, he has no choice, because the truth is dangerous to him. Thus he believes his own lies.

All of this could be defined as insanity. But this kind of insanity (vs somebody who is chemically imbalanced and can’t even hold a conversation) has a well understood cause. But in the end as the walls close in (eg Hitler), they become increasingly irrational in an attempt to hold power and not have to psychologically deal with what they did.

If we are lucky, those around them will see it for what it is, and will hopefully have the power to stop it. That’s a big if. I think the big difference between the various forms of “insanity”, is the one who’s not chemically insane will be able to cling onto power longer and that is very dangerous.

So in the end, it’s not clear if it matters all that much what the cause of the “insanity” is.