[blackrose]

From the intelligence community assessment [0]:

> The Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet RT (formerly Russia Today) has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks. RT’s editor-in-chief visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in August 2013, where they discussed renewing his broadcast contract with RT, according to Russian and Western media. Russian media subsequently announced that RT had become "the only Russian media company" to partner with WikiLeaks and had received access to "new leaks of secret information." RT routinely gives Assange sympathetic coverage and provides him a platform to denounce the United States.

[0] https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

[mc32]

WL also worked with the NYT and The Guardian and no one was calling him a puppet of the US or the UK.

Sure, it's possible he's FSB (or whatever) secret unit and he's their Trojan horse --but no one was saying that during the Bush years (or even Obama minus '16). Only now do they say, oh, he's such a puppet. It's hard to take the allegation seriously when previously many of the same people had no problem with him.

[PeterisP]

There's a big difference between NYT/Guardian, which de facto are somewhat independent private media (and not quite aligned with Trump and May), and RT, which is a fully controlled instrument of the state, implementing only state policy.

[blackrose]

People in the intelligence community consider Snowden a Russian asset now. Russia could've flipped or co-opted Assange since the Bush years, or maybe it's only now coming out. Either way much of this stuff is classified, so we can't really know details one way or the other. But if you keep up with folks in the IC and look into how Russia does warfare, you see they've been doing this forever, and they're pros at it.