More than meets the eye
I suspect we're not seeing the final answer here. The assessment that the blue torus is a ring of 400 individual stars is one option, but imagine if it were actually a single torus-shaped massive "star" stretched by tidal forces right round the black hole.
It would be dynamically stable, fed by infalling fresh gas and dust, and losing material from the inner surface. The outer red disk could be the distal "accretion disk" of this toroidal "star".
Just my $0.02c worth...