I'm personally not convinced that el-pais got the headline right unfortunately, unless they know something other journalists covering the case don't...
Assange is a hero for uncovering heinous war crimes by the US. This is obviously a plot to destroy his reputation and get him extradited to a US court. All the Russia stuff people mention came well after he was unfairly persecuted for being a journalist.
I mean, if you hold information that would literally get you disappeared without a trace by a US alphabet agency, wouldn't you try to get a nation-state of a similar caliber to try to avoid having that happen?
The degree to which liberals have decided that everything and everyone is secretly a Russian asset is extremely worrying. Basically become their version of the Nazi's blaming everything on a Jewish conspiracy.