Ah yes, a hacker organization which does things like create Android malware to disable Ukrainian artillery and attempts to interfere with American elections is

Ah yes, a hacker organization which does things like create Android malware to disable Ukrainian artillery and attempts to interfere with American elections is probably not a Russian front. Come on. Dell SecureWorks and the CIA have presented plenty of evidence that this was a Russian-backed group, probably GRU. EDIT: Also, even if there aren't lines in their malware which say "(c) GRU 2017", Fancy Bear is a group which consistently targets enemies of the Russian government. They don't steal credit card numbers, they commit digital terrorism that furthers Russia's interests. It doesn't really matter if they're 100% state-backed or not, because they clearly and consistently act in the Russian government's interests. An organization which hacks targets that benefit Russia and a Russian gov't hacking organization are the same thing from the perspective of the United States.