It's a bad idea to dismiss this claim. I haven't worked through whether the claim has merit, but China has an entire division dedicated solely to finding these

It's a bad idea to dismiss this claim. I haven't worked through whether the claim has merit, but China has an entire division dedicated solely to finding these kinds of issues in other countries. They exploit them ruthlessly. I'm sure a lot of Russian hackers aren't as independent as they seem, either. And of course, the NSA does all of this vs the rest of the world, though I'm not sure they'd be interested in the Russian equivalent of the Equifax situation.