I don’t necessarily disagree with that. None the less, there is the element of plausible denyability, and that’s essentially all a clandestine operation needs to defer responsibility.
Do you see this as an evil act on the part of the NSA, providing it is the entity that provided the information?
There is the off chance that the Ukraine came up with this on their own.
That's what the CIA is for and they're only supposed to generate fakes pursuant to a specific National Security directive signed by the President. Now, the President wouldn't specify means, just "disinformation guys" and they'd be off and running but you see what I mean I'm sure.
As for the transcript, I don't even see someone trying to maintain plausible denyability in those, that's one of the red flags to me. There are just too many ways they could have talked about other things and made all the same points with no one the wiser.
It's like they're trying to keep casual listeners who might overhear them from knowing the exact timing or some such. Maybe the local guy was concerned that everyone wouldn't go along with the release and such a concern on his part seems to fit the bill better than hiding some scheme that Moscow has been running.
Hey, you can read it a lot of ways. It just seems a little odd that when the hostages are released and someone somewhere may say that's a sign Putin is interested in keeping the lid on the SBU comes up with "proof" of what? That a Russian guy got the people released, so, the Russians must have been behind the whole thing.
That's a little like King Barry suddenly releasing his phone conversations with a half dozen different groups in the ME telling him there's no way he can rescue the people on the ground now that the lid's blown off of Libya. Convenient.