As with the Stallman/patent incident, you now start quietly tempering your words once you lose. "Likely" makes it a tempered statement, not the absolute claim of criminal you earlier made. "May be" would be still a better addition to your claim, since, while there is ZERO evidence in the article that meets the criteria for a criminal case, it is still possible that they do meet the criteria. But it's still not mentioned, so you have to fabricate "facts" in order to be able to call them criminal.
Apple has officially threatened them with criminal liabilty as well.
They usually do, even when the criteria for criminal punishment have not been met. Notice Apple said "may" be criminal. But that "may" is conditional upon facts simply not present.
No like Apple I simply take the side that they are peforming illegal activities and are subject to criminal and civil liability for those actions.
You on the other hand, take the side of the Russian hackers, and have gone so far as to knowingly and purposefully lie in their defense, even claiming Russian hackers wrote software for our DoD which was a lie you admit you knew was a lie when you posted it.