More than 550 days after the start of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine, the International Cybersport Federation has lifted the ban on Russian players from performing under the symbols of the Russian Federation and singing the anthem.

According to information from Russian portals, the decision was made by voting: 32 delegates voted in favor of lifting the ban, 13 were against, and 25 abstained.

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The original ban was imposed on April 18 last year. Despite the fact that the Russians were allowed to participate in the ongoing IESF World Esports Championship 2023 in a neutral status, they, as well as representatives of Belarus, missed the tournament themselves. The reason for this was the words of the mayor of the Romanian city of Iasi, hosting the championship this year, that the players of these two countries will not be able to guarantee security.

The IESF themselves have not released any statement regarding the flag and anthem permit.

The organization's missteps don't end there: both last year and this year, various players have complained about scheduling, technical glitches and other problems. For example, Ukrainian national team player Yaroslav "byp9" Buryak admitted in a comment for the Players portal that his team faced, among other things, packet losses:

[...] unreal heat, a lot of people, a lot of delays, changing schedules, technical problems with computers coming up all the time. [...] we had very high packet losses. In teamspace, we could hear each other through the word. I'm exaggerating a little bit, not that much, but it was palpable. And on the server, the models were teleporting.... At some point we said it didn't matter, everyone was on an equal footing. But as it turned out, the Uzbeks had no such problem.... Actually, the Uzbeks have a very good team, but I still tend to think that we were uncomfortable playing.

Yaroslav “byp9” Buryak

Recall that at the IESF CS:GO World Championship Ukraine has advanced to the quarterfinals of the playoffs, where it will play against Serbia on September 1 at 13:00.