I was speaking generally, but in this case it would be used to simply say "the Russians," regardless of whether or not they are under the Russian government. E

I was speaking generally, but in this case it would be used to simply say "the Russians," regardless of whether or not they are under the Russian government. Even then, using your own example: imagine you are testing a malicious system that you built that is hitting a public testing target. Wouldn't you want to link it to anyone other than yourself for when it is inevitably detected?