Counter-Strike legend Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyljev sats he would never join Cloud9 because the team is full of Russian players.
s1mple has been absent from the Counter-Strike 2 spotlight as the esports legend is taking a break from competition as Valve continues tending with its newly-released title and hefigures out some residency issues.
In an interview with the Ukrainian media company Players after IEM Katowice, s1mple was asked about his free agent prospects and revealed why he would never join Cloud9.
s1mple won’t join Cloud9 anytime soon
According toa teaser for the interviewput out by Players, s1mple said that every Ukrainian understands why he wouldn’t join Cloud9.
“I would never move to Cloud9 when there are four Russian players. It seems to me that every Ukrainian should understand this,” he said via a machine translation.
Currently, only two players on C9 represent Russia, Sergey ‘Ax1Le’ Rykhtorov and Kirill ‘Boombl4’ Mikhaylov. s1mple’s former NAVI teammates Denis ‘electroNic’ Sharipov and Ilya ‘Perfecto’ Zalutskiy requested to no longer represent the country on their Liquipedia profile following its invasion of Ukraine.
Cloud9 is also coached by a former Russian Counter-Strike player, Konstantin ‘groove’ Pikiner.
The Ukraine-Russia conflict is still ongoing and its seems that s1mple has taken a more hard-lined stance against players from the country as the war has drawn on.
Declan McLaughlin was a Gaming & Esports Writer on Dexerto’s US team, specializing in Valorant and League of Legends. He has bylines at Upcomer and Inven Global.
