>I presume the original source is this Project Veritas video where they covertly recorded some CNN employee talking that the stories about Russian interference are mostly empty talk without evidence produced because their viewers want to hear them.

No, the recordings were out-of-context clips saying that their Russia reporting was sensationalized. I believe they were likely referring to their constant reporting alleging or implying that Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia - this is a very, very different statement from the nigh-proven allegation that the Russian government tried to influence the election by hacking the DNC. (Side note: they allegedly hacked the RNC too, but did not publicly release any of their data.) That was reported on 7+ months ago, while the recorded clips cover recent events.

Don't get me wrong, CNN is a shitty and very biased organization seeking ratings above all else, but the Russia story is much bigger and more complex than some soundbites.

Countries like the US and Russia do this to other countries all the time: this is not new by any means. What would be new is if Trump's staffers were plotting this influencing with the Russian government ahead of time: that is what there is no strong evidence of, so far, and what CNN and some other outlets have been boosting their ratings with.

>We don't, we know they hacked the DNC if we take CrowdStrike's word for it

Far more than just CrowdStrike. Try all of these private firms, in the US and worldwide, including Kaspersky half-confirming it, plus the entire US intelligence community on every level: https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/52uj5c/do_...

And a few more sources, if you want:

https://www.secureworks.com/blog/russian-threat-group-target...

https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targe...

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/27/politics/russia-dnc-hacking-cs... (I know it's CNN, but the pertinent quote is from a FireEye analyst: "We have high confidence that this is a Russian intelligence organization," Hultquist said. "Because we've been tracking this actor for so long and we've seen so many artifacts, forensic and otherwise, that suggests that this actor is carrying out Russian intelligence missions.")

I'll gladly dig up 10+ more if you want to argue about what the private sector says about this. (Disclaimer: I do work in infosec, so I could have a slight bias.)

So maybe you don't trust the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, etc. all agreeing... but do you also distrust CrowdStrike, Kaspersky, ThreatConnect, FireEye, and Dell SecureWorks all independently investigating and agreeing that CrowdStrike's initial analysis was not only correct, but even missed other indicators. These are all competing firms. Admittedly, all but one are in the US so you could allege they're all being paid off by the government... but Occam's razor and all.

>Any examples of that? I can believe that Russia is screwing with Ukraine but I would like to see some links.

There are many examples but I CBA to find sources right now. Check the references in these articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2015_Ukraine_power_gr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare_by_Russia#Ukraine

Note Russia was and sort of still is at war with Ukraine, so it's not remotely surprising they would use these tactics against them. All superpowers use information warfare against countries they're warring with.

Petya/Petna/Nyetya so clearly looks like an attack by Russia that I think it's obvious it's either an intentional framing (by the US, or perhaps a wildcard state like NK or Iran; or who knows) or it's just what it looks like.