Russia Hacker Indictments Should Make the Kremlin Squirm

The real bombshell in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s latest indictment is the investigators’ apparent ability to link specific actions, such as searches and technical queries, to specific officers of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service. By making these connections, Mueller’s team has made an enormous leap from the U.S. intelligence community’s previous disclosures. They draw the first straight line from the hacking and spearphishing of U.S. Democrats to the Russian government — and pose some further questions for the media and the public to ask about this bizarre affair.

The indictment blames the Democratic National Committee hack and the spearphishing of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta on Military Unit 26165, located at Komsomolsky Prospekt 20 in Moscow — in former hussar barracks which also house the Russian Defense Ministry’s Military University. Another military unit, 74445, allegedly only helped maintain the infrastructure and helped distribute the stolen data.