The Spanish broadsheet newspaper El Pais on Wednesday alleged that Spanish investigators believe the CIA played a role in a Feb. 22 attack on North Korea's embassy in Madrid.

They didn't.

As the Washington Post reported on Friday, a Korean dissident organization opposed to Kim Jong Un's rule is actually believed responsible. So, why did El Pais say otherwise?

Perhaps the Russians told them the CIA was involved.

Consider that El Pais is reporting the CIA's involvement without offering any substantive evidence. That's a tell because El Pais is a nominally anti-American newspaper, and the Russians love using anti-American interests to push forwards their agenda, newspapers included. During the Cold War, the KGB repeatedly succeeded in planting fake news about American aggression in high-profile European newspapers.

There's also the fact that Vladimir Putin's government has a standing strategic intent to damage U.S. interests. Putin has shown a particular desire to disrupt U.S. relations with North Korea, and we've seen a pattern of Russian efforts to disrupt U.S. diplomacy. Moscow is now the prime suspect in sonic weapon attacks on U.S. diplomats in Cuba and China. And when they're not killing innocents with nerve agents, Russian intelligence officers around the world are instructed to harass U.S. diplomats.

So, yes, perhaps the El Pais reporters were simply being creative. Or perhaps someone told them this was the CIA.