S1mple phone calls for ‘peace for Ukraine’ at IEM Katowice Counter-Strike match

“My full job I’ve performed with Ukrainian players, I performed with Russian players, and I performed with American players, and all of them [are] wonderful men,” Kostyliev said. He gestured towards his teammates onstage with him, a few Russians and a person Ukrainian. “Right now, I stay with my close friends, with my authentic pals. We earn with each other, and we drop with each other. And all of us want peace for Ukraine and for [the] full earth. All of us [are] fearful.”

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the commencing of a “special armed service operation” in Ukraine just after months of a huge military services buildup on the border involving the two international locations. Considering the fact that then, the United Nations stories a lot more than 50,000 Ukrainians have fled the place as Russian forces have moved closer toward the cash town, Kyiv.

Onstage Friday, Kostyliev’s speech positioned his staff as a favourable instance of coexistence and friendship. “All of us want to demonstrate [an] example in this tournament for [the] whole planet,” he ongoing, after a bout of sustained applause in the venue. “We all want to keep human beings 1st.”

Kostyliev is broadly deemed one particular of the all-time finest “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” players. In 2021, the “Counter-Strike” information and stats portal HLTV rated him the most effective participant of the year, composing that “an argument can even be built that this was the strongest calendar year everyone has ever experienced in the history of the recreation.” The 24-calendar year-previous performs for Natus Vincere, or NAVI, an esports business dependent in Kyiv that, like Kostyliev, has the record of an esports powerhouse. On Thursday, the business posted a series of messages in English, Ukrainian and Russian on its Twitter feed outlining the circumstance.

“Russia attacked Ukraine,” reads NAVI’s assertion. “We are devastated. Our principal aim suitable now is to try to keep calm and get treatment of ourselves, our beloved kinds and these who require help.”

Considering the fact that the invasion, a quantity of esports companies all-around the globe have altered their profile shots on social media to the blue and yellow hues of the Ukrainian flag. In a subsequent tweet from NAVI, the firm expressed its appreciation for the guidance, in specific for these in Russia who experienced spoken out versus the war.

Given that Russia’s navy procedure began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has manufactured recurring overtures to the Russian people today to vocally oppose the war. Some Russian esports athletes, notably, have spoken up on Twitter. The esports group Team Spirit, which in Oct was congratulated by Putin just after successful the “Dota 2” Intercontinental championship, unveiled the adhering to assertion on Twitter: “We are towards war and we are in opposition to violence.” Numerous players for the Moscow-based Gambit Esports posted tweets ranging from expressions of disbelief to outright assistance for Ukraine. A single shared the hashtag #StandWithUkraine, along with a Ukrainian flag and a heart emoji.

On Thursday morning in Ukraine, Kostyliev tweeted from Poland, in which he was getting ready to contend, that his metropolis was being “shelled.”