Nah, more like "Russian bots exist and some people I disagree with are Russian bots." Which is pretty much the entire premise of the article.

It's also pretty easy to tell the difference IMO. The trolls tend to just do nothing but troll and flame. They don't really spend much time engaging on other topics.

As far as why I think Lemmy is a training ground? Call it a hunch. Obviously I don't have a notarized letter from a troll farm saying that they are in control of a certain worldnews forum, but a lot of the usual suspects fit a bit too neatly into that box to not raise an eyebrow. There are some other patterns as well buts definitely all circumstantial.