During last weekend, Virtus.pro's Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko was caught drawing a symbol considered to support Russia's invasion of Ukraine on a map in Dota 2. According to Yahoo, which was covering the ESL One Stockholm Major qualifying round, Moskalenko took the opportunity to draw a "Z" on the game map, the symbol that is often seen painted on Russian military equipment and is now strongly associated with support for Putin's warmongering efforts.
The game between Virtus.pro's Outsiders team and Mind Games, a team that notably includes two players from Ukraine, was paused when Ivan suddenly started using the feature in Dota 2 that allows participants to freely draw and write on the map, and the result was the letter Z. His teammates discovered what had happened and quickly tried to draw over the character but the damage was already done.
According to Ivan Moskalenko, it was an accident and not a deliberate provocation. Here's what he has to say about the incident:
"There was a long pause in the game, the guys and I were talking and drawing on the minimap. When we realized what exactly my drawing turned out to be, we tried to cover it up. I didn't mean to offend anyone, it all happened by accident. Peace to all."
It didn't help much though, the cat was already out of the bag so to speak and the team was disqualified immediately, whereupon Mind Games was awarded the win and the Outsiders were disqualified in all future matches as well. However, Virtus.pro thought that it was completely unreasonable that a whole team should be forced to take the blame for something a single individual had done and issued the following statement:
"Right after the incident with Pure during game 1 we contacted Valve and the tournament organizer while conducting our own investigation. Sergey Glamazda, CEO of Virtus.pro, personally talked to the players between the games to find out more about what happened. Pure publicly explained himself right after the game. BTS also contacted other players of our team to hear their side of the story. We were notified that the final decision was up to the publisher.
The severity of the punishment is shocking. Valve has a certain history of imposing disciplinary measures, but disqualifying the whole team from a DPC tournament based on a drawing on a minimap by single player sets up a whole new precedent.
Any actions have consequences, whether intentional or not. Virtus.pro has been consistently opposing any cases of inciting hatred in esports. The club terminates contract with Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko for his diminishing actions that led to disqualification from the tournament and caused a great deal of harm to our relationship with the worldwide esports society."