Security News > 2023 > May > New CS:GO map bypasses Russia's censorship of Ukraine war news
Finish newspaper Helsinin Sanomat has created a custom Counter-Strike: Global Offensive map explicitly made to bypass Russian news censorship and smuggle information about the war in Ukraine to Russian players.
Starting in March 2022, following its invasion of Ukraine, Russia began blocking international news outlets to implement tighter controls over what news reaches the Russian audience regarding the ongoing war.
As first reported by PC Gamer, a custom CS:GO map named 'de voyna' resembles the ruins of a Slavic city featuring a secret underground bunker that players can visit to access information about the war in Ukraine.
"The purpose is to make Russians see that the terrors of war are happening in places that look very familiar to them," explains the newspaper on a dedicated page about the launch of the special CS:GO map.
Helsinin Sanomat urges players from Western countries to play the map and try to get Russian players also to play it, which fulfills the primary purpose of its existence.
Last year, a similar project that aimed to "Smuggle" information about the war in Ukraine to Russians used movie and game torrents to do it.