The indictment is here.
There are a lot of names, dates, and details in it. But there is real news, too--news that the media and pundits, and even our own community, have perhaps not fully absorbed yet.
That news is: By 2016, the Russian effort was NOT intended to sow chaos or disrupt the election. It was explicitly intended to install Donald Trump as President.
Paragraph 6: ...by early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) and disparaging Hillary Clinton.
Paragraph 31: Defendants and their co-conspirators learned from the real U.S. person that they should focus their activities on “purple states like Colorado, Virginia & Florida.” After that exchange, Defendants and their co-conspirators commonly referred to targeting “purple states” in directing their efforts.
Paragraph 43.b On or about September 14, 2016, in an internal review of an ORGANIZATION-created and controlled Facebook group called “Secured Borders,” the account specialist was criticized for having a “low number of posts dedicated to criticizing Hillary Clinton” and was told “it is imperative to intensify criticizing Hillary Clinton” in future posts.
46. In or around the latter half of 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, through their ORGANIZATION-controlled personas, began to encourage U.S. minority groups not to vote in the 2016 U.S. presidential election or to vote for a third-party U.S. presidential candidate.
48. From at least April 2016 through November 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, while concealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation through false personas, began to produce, purchase, and post advertisements on U.S. social media and other online sites expressly advocating for the election of then-candidate Trump or expressly opposing Clinton.
There is much more in the 37-page indictment, including statements that the Russians attacked Trump opponents Rubio and Cruz in the Republican primaries, and supported Sanders in the Democratic primaries. The indictment doesn't provide examples of these attacks or support--but they are consistent with the view that the Russians strongly opposed Clinton and strongly favored Trump.
This matters because Trump and his surrogates are busy promoting the lie that the Russian aim was to sow chaos and confusion. That is arguably not such a big deal; elections are always messy anyway.
But it isn’t true. The indictment spells it out in clear language: their aim was to elect Donald Trump as President. Trump, his supporters, and his controllers want to obscure the conclusion of the indictment, because it casts a dark shadow on the legitimacy of his administration.