World of Tanks creative director fired for publicly supporting Russia
World of Tanks creative director Sergey Burkatovskiy has been fired by studio Wargaming after publicly supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In a now-deleted Facebook post, Burkatovskiy wrote that he supported «the operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the DPR [Donetsk People's Republic] and the LPR [Luhansk People's Republic]».
A day later, he followed up with a post saying he «broke up with the VG», with VG translating to WG and referring to the studio Wargaming.
Wargaming has since confirmed in a statement to PC Gamer that Burkatovskiy is no longer employed.
«Sergey Burkatovskiy expressed his personal opinion on social media which categorically does not reflect the position of the company,» a Wargaming representative said. «He has been let go and is no longer at the company.»
Wargaming is based in Belarus and employs hundreds of developers in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.
The Kyiv studio made a donation of 30m hryvnia ($1m) to the Ukrainian Red Cross in response to the Russian invasion.
Wargaming has also made changes to its online advertising — this was halted globally and redesigned to remove imagery of advancing tanks and military vehicles. Advertising has now resumed globally with the new assets, excluding Ukraine «as we believe it is inappropriate and insensitive to advertise our games while it is the centre of this conflict».
The Wargaming representative continued: «At Wargaming, the safety and security of our employees is the top priority. Currently, all available company resources are helping and supporting our 550+ colleagues: providing them with alternate housing, early salary payments, additional funds to aid travel and relocation.
»We are helping our employees' families to travel to
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