Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine, if that was the goal? Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?

> Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?

If you think said stooge is likely to get reelected (which, except for COVID coming out of the blue, was highly likely) and that stooge is already making noise about isolationism, why interrupt?

2022 looks a lot like an "oh shit, plan B" scenario.

> Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine

Because that's when he had intelligence leading him to believe the Ukrainian regime would crumble quickly or capitulate in the face of a large-scale invasion, and possibly also the NATO would fail to unite and respond, in part due to the success of Russian influence operations, which were not only directed at the US.

Conversely, why not invade to destabilize the incumbency of the non-stooge so that the stooge wins re-election and then use the stooge to negotiate a favorable frozen conflict? Or why even attribute it to POTUS at all? Why not attribute it to the fact that Ukraine's military power was growing due to the Western training that they were receiving over the previous 10 years, and Putin was effectively on a clock to invade? Eastern European conflicts have never revolved around who is POTUS.