On Friday, just a day after Russia began bombing cities in Ukraine, including s1mple’s home of Kyiv, Navi’s star player took to the stage in IEM Katowice for something far more important than the series he’d play the next day.
He took to the stage in front of an eager crowd to deliver a message calling for, above anything else, unity:
“My whole career I played with Ukrainian players, I played with Russian players, and I played with American players,” he said. “We win together, and we lose together. And all of us want peace for Ukraine, and for the whole world. All of us here.”
Visibly emotional, s1mple finished by calling on everyone to stay together, ending by saying “we all need to stay humans first.”
On sunday he shared a story on his instagram, showing a donation of €30,000 to support Ukraine’s efforts captioning it “at least I can help my country somehow. Take care of yourselves.”
Other members of the Navi organization have also been sharing messages of support, with the NAVI twitter account thanking citizens of countries like Russia and Belarus for supporting Ukraine and retweeting information from the Ukrainian government regarding ways people can help.
Other CSGO personalities, and esports personalities in general, have also shown support for Ukraine.
Jerome Coupez, agent for players like ZywOo and TenZ, took to Twitter on Friday to help people evacuate while Team Liquid’s co-ceo, Nazgul, shared that the organization’s apartments in the Netherlands were open to players who were unable to go home.
Despite these horrific world events, it’s good to see the CS:GO world rallying behind Ukraine.
If you want to show support, we recommend this direct contribution to Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
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