WikiLeaks partnered with the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, but only a few stories were published from nearly a quarter of a million files from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Novaya Gazeta paid a fee to have exclusive access to the documents, according to John Helmer, a foreign correspondent in Moscow who writes for Business Insider.
WikiLeaks has said, however, that there was never any financial benefit from working with Novaya Gazeta, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Assange’s position in Russia has evolved. In 2012, Assange had his own show on the RT news network , and that same year he produced episodes for the network, interviewing opposition figures such as Noam Chomsky and so-called “cypherpunks.”
Questions about Assange's links to Russia arose last year when the Daily Dot reported that WikiLeaks failed to publish documents revealing a €2 billion transaction between the Syrian regime and a government-owned Russian bank in 2012.
Details of these documents appear in a leaked Court records published by the Daily Dot.
A WikiLeaks spokesperson told the Daily Dot that they published all the messages without hiding anything, and went on to say that the Daily Dot was essentially supporting Hillary Clinton.
The Foreign Policy publication goes on to describe several other examples of times when Assange decided to ignore material sent to him and points to his shady connections to Russia.
Assange is a journalist, and certainly a unique journalist. However, we should not forget that he is only a journalist. He makes editorial decisions and can make mistakes. The criticism he receives from the international press is quite controversial.
However, lately, things have been heard that are not flattering to him more and more often. For example, Gizmodo , which reports harshly:
“In other words, he's an asshole.”
