Phobia, by definition, is uncontrollable, irrational, and lasting fear for something. In the current geopolitics situation I’d say that it’s not uncontrollable and very much not irrational.

Russophobia is the fear or hatred of Russia or people from Russia. Etymology is not semantics, as anyone should already know.

When I first read that I thought that the response is a bit harsh, as Russian (and Soviet Union) individuals have traditionally been a big part of open source community and their achievements on computing are pretty significant, but when you dig a bit deeper on that, a majority of Soviet era things are actually built by Ukrainians in Kyiv (obviously Ukraine as a country wasn’t a thing back then).

This is simply false. Soviet contributions spanned a large array of ethnicitied and nationalities and Ukraine was a minority in their regard, as were all ethnicities and nationalities.

Though I don’t see why your point would matter. Is Russophobia only bad if Russians have made enough contributions to your field of interest?

Also, based on my very limited sight on the matter, Russians are not banned from contributing, but this is more of an statement that anyone working for the government in Russia can’t be a part of kernel development team.

To my knowledge, nothing at all has been said about working for the Russian government or: this issue. It I’d a blanket exclusion of all Russians from the maintainer list.

Personally I’ve seen individuals at Russia to do quite amazing feats with both hardware and software, but as none of us are in a void without any external infcluence nor affect, I think that, while harsh, the “sanctions” (for a lack of better word) aren’t overshooting anything, but they’re instead leveling the playing field.

Presumably you support much harsher sanctions against all Americans, Brits, Germans, French, and Israelis, then. Are you any of these things? Perhaps you should start advocating for sanctions on yourself.

Any Joe Anynymous could write a code which compromises the kernel as a whole, but should that Joe live in Russia, it might bring a government backed team which can hide their tracks on a quite a bit different level with their resources than any individual could ever even dream about.

That is in no way unique to Russia and we already have plenty of examples of US, Israeli, and other Western countries compromising systems and software. Do just a little bit of critical thinking.