And unless I missed something, there is little connection to the now established narrative of the Russian government (not just random Russians), tipping the election in favour of Trump through hacking DNC and spreading the emails by way of Wikileaks. Which is what I understand Colman was asking about.

Manafort and Gates are charged with illegally receiving  money (and hiding, and lying about it) from Yanukovych, his party and various organisations. The party is described as pro-Russian, but otherwise Russia isn't mentioned there as far as I saw.

George Papadopoulos had contacts primarily with a professor, identified by media as Joseph Mifsud, who promised him contacts with the Russian Ambassador in London (but that didn't happen) and introduced him to a woman Papadopoulos understood to be Putin's niece (but who wasn't). The only solid connection to Russia is an unnamed person that Papadopoulos understood to be working for the Russian Foreign ministry.

Mifsud has in newspapers claimed it was a Russian academic, not a Russian Foreign ministry official.

So what we are left with is a chain of persons that might connect to the Russian Foreign ministry, but a chain that has proven less than trustworthy in the past. Don't really see how that would affect my answer to Colman.