Putin didn't invade in 2018-19 because he was still preparing. There are indications that the invasion was planned for 2020, but obviously COVID happened.
It took a month to prepare. The original plan was to invade in 2018 but Trump said no. Then covid happened and it got delayed again. Then the Chinese asked that Putin wait until the Beijing Olympics were over. This is how it became February 2022.
Further the Biden Afghan withdrawal convinced Putin that Biden wouldn't react.
Bullshit. 2018 was the year when the FIFA World Cup was held in Russia. Putin obviously didn't want to sabotage them.
Trumpy tantrums did nothing, I repeat. Neither is he going to do anything useful once he gets back into the office. Putin will play him off like a sucker he is.
"Russia" did not really want to invade. _Putin_ wanted to invade. You need to separate these two entities. In 2018, Putin was still riding the high of the successful Crimean annexation.
His plan had clearly been to repeat that exercise to boost his ratings by the next election (in 2024). 2018 was too early for that.
We now can see that the preparation for the war started in 2020-2021. For example, Putin made sure that Russia had a big enough monetary Reserve Fund. And unlike many other countries, Russia did not do state-sponsored economic stimulation during the lockdowns.
he didn't invade in 2018 because he was still preparing -- and because Trump was still a wildcard that could work out for him. If he won the Presidency in 2020 then Putin could slow walk the invasion.
Biden + COVID changed the landscape enough that Putin and the FSB advisors who did the planning were convinced they could (and arguably, had to, since his Trump ace-in-the-hole was not certain) make a move. Thus a 2022 invasion.
https://kyivindependent.com/trump-suggested-he-would-have-bo...
He also talked about this conversation with Putin in the Joe Rogan interview.
If Trump had weakened NATO it would have made an invasion more likely, not less.