I doubt if someone wants to introduce a backdoor, they would do that with a russian mailing address. People removed were open and transparent about their nationalities which means there is even less chance them being bad actors than some random guy pretending to be American.
What would be the point of the sanctions then? If the Linux Foundation were against it they could move the infrastructure to an other jurisdiction which does not sanctize countries, that would carry a strong message. But if they refuse to do that, what’s wrong with others’ forking it and doing it? That’s the point of opensource.