Trump would have "hit back hard"? You mean the Trump who withheld aid to Ukraine because Zelenskyy wouldn't help him find dirt on Hunter Biden? The Trump that Putin worked so hard to put in office? The Trump who wants to build a hotel in Moscow? THAT Trump? Yikes.

If Putin waited until Trump was out of office, it was because he was getting so much from Trump and didn't want to embarrass him by taking Ukraine on his watch. So Putin waited until the President wasn't afraid to tell the world how bad Putin was. Trump was attacking NATO. It would have been nuts for Putin to give the alliance a reason to cohere while the "leader of the free world" was tearing it apart.