As Russian forces attack cities in Ukraine, some game developers volunteer to fight
As the war in Ukraine enters its third week, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion force is tightening its grip, despite setbacks, on key cities. With the nation’s capital Kyiv under siege, game developers in Ukraine tell Polygon that their employees are taking up arms to defend their country. Others say they are sheltering in place, either unable or unwilling to leave their homes amid artillery barrages and airstrikes.
Tymur Solod, marketing manager at Pingle Studio, has spent much of his time working to find safe passage for his team trapped in the city of Kharkiv, which has been shelled indiscriminately by Russian forces for days.
“The city is being burned to the ground,” Solod told Polygon over the weekend. “We managed to evacuate almost everyone. [...] There are few people left, and we [are] organizing an evacuation for them now.”
He said that a core group of developers will be heading west, toward the relative safety of the region around Lviv. Others, meanwhile, have made the choice to stay behind.
“Some people of our team volunteered to [join the] regular army and territory defense units,” Solod said. “The company [keeps paying a] salary for everyone, especially those who joined [the] army.”
Yaroslav Singaevskiy, lead game designer at Red Beat, said members of his team have volunteered for the territorial defense, or TD.
“One of our devs [...] is in Chernihiv’s TD,” Singaevskiy told Polygon. “Basically, that’s a paramilitary force that acts as a backup for main army forces. Yet TD units often take part in combat too — and they are pretty effective at it thanks to high mobility and general knowledge of the area. [...] We hope and pray that [they] will be okay as well as Chernihiv’s citizens.”
Meanwhile,
Read more on polygon.com
