Oleksiy xaoc Kucherov, Operations Director of the Ukrainian esports organization Natus Vincere, explained why the club continues to cooperate with players from Russia.
According to Kucherov, the organization strives to take more Ukrainian esports players into its roster, but is experiencing difficulties due to the small number of players.
“We thought about how best to do it, thought about the options. For example, to kick all the players from Russia and Belarus, and that’s it, forget about them. But here we must understand that… I read a lot of comments: “Take the Ukrainians into the squad for this or that discipline.” Unfortunately, there simply aren’t that many. As much as we would like it, they are now gone. We are focused on changing this situation. We try to take more Ukrainian players into our squads. Although this is not visible from the proportions, one must understand in general the proportions between the Ukrainian audience and the Russian one. Because the proportions are basically 4:1 for both the audience and the players.
The focus, given the situation, we will always have on players not from Russia and not from Belarus – that’s for sure. But, unfortunately, until we have grown dozens of good players in Ukraine, we will sometimes take Russian players. We must understand that there is simply no other way. Or we need to disband all Russian-speaking teams and go to Europe. There are no other options. We will not be able to assemble PUBG Mobile, CS, or Valorant lineups just in Ukraine. There are simply no players,” xaoc said.
Thus, two Russians will remain in the NAVI CS:GO roster – electronic and Perfecto. The club can also sign a third player from the country of the aggressor.