Like any effective propaganda talking point, it seems to make intuitive sense... but is completely empty and only serves to divide the European public opinion when you look at facts.
This is hardly a Russian talking point. But it is true that the US has long fought to keep Europe and Russia from economic alliance, and it is definitely true that it is US foreign policy to interfere with Europes' growth. Europeans understand this of Americas ruling class, even if the American public doesn't.
This is a message, a fuckup or an accident. What it is not is a successful covert operation by a competent intelligence agency.
Intelligence agencies will say anything. Everyone crafting pet conspiracy theories today belies either underlying motive or incompetence. (I tend to assume the latter.) It’s in the same category as same-day armchair crash investigation. Fact-driven analysis not yet possible, the discussion gets dominated by those fitting data to their worldviews.
"Coicidence theories" (for lack of a better word) are just as difficult to prove on day 1.
Yup. Because obvious, minor disablement not in anyone’s interest. Russia, U.S. or Europe. It might be latent capabilities firing early (fuckup), rogue elements (fuckup), et cetera. But anyone arguing this news benefits America or Moscow is already outside reality.
Why would a "competent" intelligence agency need to get involved in making it covert, after the US President, himself, admitted that it would happen?
This straw man argument you're making does serve to deflect attention from the one party that is obviously going to benefit from this event, however.