Mueller’s indictment, echoing the assessment of every high-level Trump administration national security official, leaves no doubt that Russia engaged in a large, lengthy and expensive effort to interfere with our democratic process, an effort that involved scores of employees who showed up at their office job each day to undermine our tradition of democratic elections.

And it’s not just Mueller who is warning us about the Kremlin’s increasingly nefarious activities. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is engaged in a low-intensity conflict not just against the United States, but against the civilized world, where commerce and prosperity are inextricably intertwined with digitally connected machines. Fearing that both democracy and free and fair economies represent an existential threat to his corrupt authoritarian regime, Putin’s Russia is increasingly responsible both for indiscriminate destructive cyberattacks and for harboring cybercriminals who harm the global online economy. It is impossible to confront threats to cybersecurity without addressing the Putin problem.