It sure would be easy to "turn the tables" on Darkside if the "partnership" was actually with NSA Spooks masquerading as "Russian Hackers" Orchestrating the entire operation.
It would also explain the FBI "possession" of the Private Key to the Hackers Bitcoin Wallet
The Russians already acknowledged it’s a Russian group... claimed they arrested the miscreants on some other case, (but probably just renamed and repackaged them.)