Free software during wartime

You're not really missing anything. My response wasn't aimed at that particular patch -- I was describing the situation in general when it comes to accepting contributions coming from BE.

If you're a US company funding kernel development, you have to worry *any* time your employees interact with sanctioned entities, because what is okay and what isn't okay requires nuanced understanding and proper legal vetting. When a patch comes in with a clear attribution to BE, I can guarantee you that the legal team gets very nervous about their engineers touching it, even if it's not specific to BE architecture (you know this, I know this, but a judge will not know this without a panel of experts).