By1212, again, this is pure speculation, each side can put their own explanation. If Putin were to think that Trump is weak, he would surely use it to advance somewhere. Why wait for a strong President with 40 years of experience who will unite all allies around him? Given how much Russians tried to affect US elections (going back to at least Reagan), they would surely use their electoral luck. Why meddle then? At worst, they could have attacked after election results were published. would you say that Putin was waiting for Pence to de-certify the results?
the only plausible locations where Putin advanced was Syria and it is not clear how we could have stopped him after he was there already. Case can be made that we limited his advances. note that there were reports that Russian heavily rotated unites in Syria, giving their forces a chance to practice modern warfare – mostly bombing cities. So that was preparation for UKR. As they didn’t include tanks there, this may explain why many of them are standing on the highways.
I don’t think Zelensky actively pursued anti-T policies. He was desperately trying to avoid getting involved on either side of US politics.