Connection to the state sounds like a much better reason than ‘being Russian or using Russian email address’. I understand why the internet ‘discussion’ mostly fails to notice this difference
To be fair to the internet discussion, Linus’s (and the other maintainers’) communication on this could have been better. Still, it should’ve been pretty obvious from the start that this is a sanctions thing, and people and companies don’t end up on sanctions lists for no reason – though it is easy to end up on the list if you have even indirect ties to the Russian state.