...What did you refer to here?
My first reaction is, are you saying that having looked into this you do not believe any Russian has ever acknowledged involvement on the part of their country in the 2016 U.S. presidential election? Or are you saying you don't happen to remember hearing or reading anything about this?
When I said "the Russians" have acknowledged this, I meant individual Russians, not the Russian government. Last year I read a full blown description about the Russian cyber unit that became involved in the U.S. election. How for a long time they were really a backwater of Russian espionage or intelligence. It wasn't until the last few years when the cyber unit was able to successfully manipulate social media in various parts of the former Soviet Union that higher ups in the Russian government -- almost certainly including Putin -- began to realize that the cyber warfare unit could do very valuable work.
Gennady Gudkov, a former KGB colonel, told NPR a couple years ago that he once had damaging information on a candidate in the 2012 French presidential elections and passed the information along to the Russian foreign ministry. They decided not to use it because they feared if the leak was traced back to Russia it would poison relations between the two countries for years to come. But using bots to post on social media inside the country targeted has really changed the playing field.
In the 2012 example, the Russian cyber unit -- which I don't think was very active at that time -- would have created bots that represented themselves as and appeared to be French citizens. The damaging information wouldn't have been sprung. But rumors would be posted on various French social media sites (in French), with the idea of getting the attention of French media and, guide them to the story, posting additional "clues" on French social media outlets if need be.
I have seen it speculated, the pervasive rumors in the last few months of the 2016 campaign about Hillary Clinton being in very poor health, were circulated in part by the Russian cyber unit. That would be a classic example, where bots create a groundswell of rumors and interest on social media which reaches a level where the mainstream media feels compelled to investigate. By then, no matter what the mainstream media reports, a significant number of people will believe that Clinton must be having health problems or else, "why would anyone be talking about it in the first place?"
It's a new age. I recently posted a comment from Tamir Pardo, the former head of Israel's Mossad. Referring to the Russian campaign to effect the U.S. presidential elections, Prado said, “It was the biggest Russian win ever. Without shooting one bullet, American society was torn apart.”
And it's true, absolutely. Donald Trump being elected U.S. president has torn this country apart in many ways big and small.
