The Ukrainian CS2 community has expressed its outrage over BLAST's announcement of partnerships with Russian esports organizations Spirit and Virtus.pro for 2024. However, the Ukrainian community emphasized that BLAST had previously promised in March 2022 not to collaborate with Russian teams following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Although both organizations have de jure relocated from Russia (Spirit to Serbia, Virtus.pro to Armenia), they continue to pay taxes in Russia, cater to the Russian audience, and support Russian sponsors. This has caused outrage among prominent members of the Ukrainian CS2 community, such as Oleksandr "petr1k" Petryk, Oleksiy "yXo" Maletsky, Ivan "Johnta" Shevtsov, and Antonina "Tonya" Predko, who condemned BLAST's actions as 'hypocrisy' and 'tolerance towards terrorists'.

No russian-based teams will be invited you said BLAST? But if they pay why not?? 3/4 new BLAST partners are sponsored by russian bookmakers, 2/4 have russian squads. And of course 1 of them were previously banned due to connection with russian government. Disgusting.

Oleksandr "petr1k" Petryk, Analyst

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This partnership with Russian organizations calls into question BLAST's image as an organization that keeps its promises and values. The Ukrainian community points to possible future unpleasant announcements and emphasizes that money is more important than values for some companies in the esports industry.

It's already obvious to everyone that there can be no sanctions for Russian teams in esports and there won't be. Things will only get worse in this regard, because right now, money in the market is very limited and one of these forces is Russian bettors. Thus, global companies are either forced or happily go to take this money. And more unpleasant announcements await us. We have what we have.

Tonya" Predko, NAVI host

This partnership allows teams to participate in BLAST Groups with the opportunity to compete for spots in the BLAST Finals. In addition to the two Russian teams, Falcons and GamerLegion also became BLAST Premier partners. The first tournament in the BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024 series will start on January 22."