This is wrong.
Example: thunderbird / torbirdy / enigmail was recently removed without Whonix 14 → 15 release upgrade. (Thunderbird / enigmail no longer installed / sudo apt-get dist-upgrade - The following packages will be REMOVED: enigmail)
Doesn’t apply here.
Whonix VirtualBox 14.0.0.5.5 Testers Wanted! - #10 by nurmagoz is about VLC on Whonix-Gateway due to a weird and hard to remove because no Whonix package on Whonix-Gateway directly wants to install VLC. Ticket: ⚓ T786 consider installing phonon4qt5-backend-null by default on Whonix-Gateway
Directly meaning “look into anon-meta-packages/debian/control at master · Whonix/anon-meta-packages · GitHub”. Only package whonix-workstation-default-applications-gui Depends: vlc and whonix-workstation-default-applications-gui is not installed on Whonix-Gateway. So VLC on Whonix-Gateway is a dependency of something else.
Removing ricochet without release upgrade would be easy since package Whonix-Workstation directly Depends: on ricochet-im Directly meaning “look into anon-meta-packages/debian/control at master · Whonix/anon-meta-packages · GitHub” where you can see whonix-workstation-default-applications-gui Depends: ricochet-im.