The Russian bear never dies?

Let me take an opportunity today and talk about old Russian proverbs about bear that DO exist in Russian language.

“There’s an old proverb that says the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates,” asserted by Mike Pence last Tuesday while he tried to make the case that the Vladimir Putin’s aggression was a result of the President Obama’s policies. Those who have been paying attention so far this century are aware that Putin’s aggression actually began during the George W. Bush’s presidency. But Pence may have an even harder time explaining why he appears to have simply made up the supposed old Russian quote. I don’t quite understand what you are trying to say in this sentence.

When you try googling Mike Pence’s Russia quote “the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates,” with quotation marks around it, you get no search results at all beyond those quoting Pence in the debate; that phrase does not exist in all of human history in those exact words. The “Russian bear never sleeps” part certainly exists, but the part about the bear hibernating? - Not so much. The evidence suggests that he simply made up the second half of the quote himself during the course of the campaign, and falsely attributed it to the original expression in order to make it sound more authoritarian.

Below are two proverbs that exist in Russian language in reference to bears.

Дели́ть шку́ру неуби́того медве́дя.

Transliteration: Delit' shkuru neubitovo medvedya.
Translation: To divide the pelt of a bear not yet killed.
English equivalent: To cook a hare before catching him; Don't count your chickens before they hatch; Don't run before your horse to market; Don't put the cart before the horse.
Compare: Не говори́ гоп, пока́ не переско́чишь (перепры́гнешь).

От во́лка бежа́л, да на медве́дя попа́л.