@feld I also think it's because of some sanctions. The logical question after that would be "Why now and not 2 years ago?"
And because Linus and likely Greg were advised to not talk about it by lawyers, it's also possible that LF sponsors just wanted them gone.

The fact they removed some Russian maintainers isn't really the problem at least for me. It's the behavior after they've done it. None of the maintainers were moved to the credits file. They were just deleted.