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'CS:GO' Pro Still Gives £25K To Ukrainian Army Despite Losing Tournament

Ewan Moore

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'CS:GO' Pro Still Gives £25K To Ukrainian Army Despite Losing Tournament

Featured Image Credit: Valve/ESL Counter-Strike / IEM Katowice

A popular Counter Strike: Global Offensive streamer and pro gamer has donated a hefty sum to the Ukrainian army, it has emerged.

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Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev revealed on his Instagram Stories (thanks, Kotaku) that he'd given 1 million Ukrainian hryvnias (roughly £25,000) in support of the troops currently fighting off the ongoing Russian invasion.

Russia began its invasion of the Ukraine last week, in a "special military operation" that has already killed hundreds of innocent civilians and caused thousands to flee their homes in terror.

As a Ukrainian CS:GO player for the Kyiv-based esports organization Natus Vincere, Kostyliev obviously has deep personal ties to the conflict: it's his home that's being ravaged by war.

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The streamer has been tweeting about the invasion for the last week, but it was at Poland's annual esports tournament IEM Katowice that he took the opportunity of a massive worldwide audience to call for an end to the madness.

After being knocked out of the tournament and losing out on the huge $1 million prize pool, Kostyliev delivered a moving speech to viewers around the world.

“All of us are scared, and all of us need to show [an] example [at] this tournament for [the] whole world,” he said. “We need to stay together as a unit because our fans, because our friends, because everyone who’s gonna watch this tournament. We all need to stay humans first.”

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Just a few days later, it was revealed by Ukrainian Olympic sports and NBA broadcaster Vitalii Volochai that Kostyliev had made a sizable donation to the Ukrainian army.

The streamer has yet to acknowledge this donation publicly, but it's not the first time he's made such a move: Kotaku notes that back in 2018, Kostyliev gave all his winnings from the FACEIT Pro League Tournament to Movember UK.

Topics: Twitch, World News, CSGO, Valve

Ewan Moore
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