"The Russian military is purchasing Starlink terminals from SpaceX, with supplies coming from the USA, Europe,

[DFW]

14. "Wholly owned, independent arm's length entities."

It's a common enough structure. For example, since the EU tries to tax any non-EU company on its worldwide income, many non-EU companies wishing to do business there purchase existing EU companies and keep them as completely independent, separate entities. Since it would be grossly unfair for the EU to tax, say, Arby's on its entire US income just because they opened two retail outlets in Frankfurt, Arby's (or whoever) would form "Arby's Deutschland" (or whatever), incorporate there, and let their German operation operate and be taxed where their business is. Whatever is left over after taxes, the owning company, Arby's USA (or whatever it's called) can either repatriate the profits or re-invest them for growth of the local business as they see fit. The owner company in the USA can not interfere with the independence of the foreign entity, or else the independence of the foreign entity could be challenged. Therefore, if Musk owns a company in a foreign country that has no sanctions with Russia, that company can do business with Russia with far less scrutiny. Musk could still get in trouble with the US authorities, but they'd have to do a thorough investigation to prove the connection before they can take action.

I have an ex-pat Iranian friend who has been living in Germany for almost all his life. His family still has a house on the Island of Kish, the Iranian Hong Kong, where Dick Cheney (now in the name of Halliburton) still owns a house. He said that Iran still does business with every country in the world except Israel, sanctions or no sanctions. They just go through third parties/countries.