These are my thoughts exactly. In fact, nothing exclusive to Russia is mentioned in that article at all. It describes old known attack vectors that can be exploited by China as much as Russia, or any other bad actor for that matter. Very strange that the word "Russia" is mentioned without substance so many times throughout the article.

Perhaps they wanted it to be taken seriously, a reference to Russia seems like one of the more effective approaches to instill fear and gain trustworthiness.

Instilling fear is a poor way to gain trustworthiness.