> On one hand, that account of the attempted project takeover smelled to me like Jia Tan.

Oleh was basically the sole maintainer for many years, and the development basically stopped when he left.

Yes, I know you can be legit, but when you first contribute a few useful things, then jump to maintainership and want keys to the kingdom, the pattern looks similar (sans the last step which is embedding some backdoor). At least in how the article described it.