Are Russian Cozy Bears blackmailing liberal American groups?

Ewan Lawson, senior fellow for military influence at the Royal United Services Institute told SC that if one is inclined to believe that the Russian government uses non-state groups to carry out its offensive operations, this makes sense. If Cozy Bear is one such proxy, “it is likely that they will have come across material that the state did not wish to use but which provided an opportunity to make a little money. If those individuals/groups were previously cyber criminals then it is perhaps even less surprising."