A creative director working on World of Tanks had to leave the Wargaming studio.

The person in question is Sergey Burkatovskiy, whose views, according to Wargaming, opposed the company and was fired from his job after a Facebook post. In the post, Burkatovskiy wrote that he supported the military operations of the Russian Federation’s army, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic. For this reason, the Belarussian company, which has hundreds of employees in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, quickly distanced itself from Burkatovskiy’s post: it told Cyber.Sports.ru that it was his personal opinion, which did not coincide with its position in the company. Wargaming is now helping his team of at least 550 people in Kyiv and their families.

The situation was taken to a higher level a day later, as Burkatovskiy wrote in a short Facebook post that he had broken up with “VG”, which most likely meant Wargaming. The company confirmed it to PCGamer in a statement. The team (also) behind World of Tanks said that they had let Burkatovskiy go and that he was no longer working for them. There’s also a bit of a foggy statement about the WoT advertising policy. At the beginning of the invasion, advertising was stopped internationally, and afterwards, the studio redesigned its advertising assets: images of military vehicles and tanks were removed. Now they are advertising again with the new assets. However, they are still paused in Ukraine because it says it would be inappropriate and insensitive to promote their games at the centre of the conflict.

Wargaming’s Kyiv studio has donated more than a million dollars to the Ukrainian Red Cross. A spokesperson for the studio said, “At Wargaming, the safety and security of our employees is the top priority. Currently, all available company resources are helping and supporting our 550+ colleagues: providing them with alternate housing, early salary payments, additional funds to aid travel and relocation. We are helping our employees’ families to travel to neighbouring countries and organizing accommodation for them. And lastly, today, Wargaming Kyiv is donating $1 million to the Ukrainian Red Cross. These funds will be used to support Ukrainian hospitals and doctors, those citizens who have been displaced and other vital activities of the humanitarian organization as is needed.”

If the need arises, they will come forward with additional support.

Source: PCGamer