Azure DevOps Epic Feature Timeline Items in Removed State Spanning Multiple Sprints

Question

I'm attempting to examine the epic/feature timeline and have noticed that finished epics, features cover all sprints, and

stories.

Considering that Removed is not seen as a final state and DevOps views such Stories and Bugs as still open, I wonder whether this has anything to do with them.

Other than deleting all removed things, is there a way to make Removed a permanent condition or a workaround for this?

I appreciate any guidance you may give. I tried to filter only to show the states I wanted in the backlog, however, this increased all of the epics' items and had no effect on the schedule.