I like to imagine that one arm of the American surveillance state started the exploit and the DOJ wrapped it up only after Fancy Bear noticed exploitable routers. I mean, there wasn't any evidence that this originated from Russia in the article, just the assertion that it was so. Who's checking?
Honest question: Assuming nation states have the all-powerful ability to install software on your networking gear, which country would you rather have? USA or Russia?
Closest thing we have is end to end encryption mixed with services like tor to obfuscate our positions. Privacy is no longer opt out and is increasingly harder to achieve.