Monte's Ukrainian contingent renews wartime travel permission

Monte was able to qualify for the upcoming ESL Pro League Season 19 playoffs following their best-of-three victory over FURIA on Sunday. While the players should be celebrating and preparing for their upcoming match against FaZe tomorrow afternoon, Serghij "DemQQ" Demchenko, Volodymyr "Woro2k" Veletnjuk, and Serhij "lmbt" Bezhanov are traveling back and forth between Malta and Ukraine.

The Russo-Ukrainian War has complicated travel for adult Ukrainian men as there is a shortage of soldiers defending their homeland. Wartime policies in Ukraine have become even more strict as the country has now temporarily barred military-age men from applying for passports abroad.

"In Ukraine, due to martial law, we have specific rules for traveling abroad. The state grants permission for a certain number of days, after which you must return and make a note at the border service. This is usually done quite quickly," said Monte to Dust2.us. "If we did not do this, we would have problems traveling abroad in the future. This is the reality, but we follow the rules and are grateful to the state for the opportunity to represent Ukraine and talk about the war."

Permission to leave the country is not always given, however. lmbt famously missed the 2023 BLAST.tv Paris Major due to travel restrictions.

Monte Director of Esports Denys Yashniev further explained the travel issue, "The allowance which Woro2k, DemQQ, and coach lmbt received to leave the country for GET Rio and ESL Pro League expired today. In order for us to participate further in the tournament, we would need to request a new allowance. The only way to activate the new allowance to leave Ukraine is to come back to the country and cross the border again."

Each of the Ukrainian players are expected to arrive back in Malta prior to the start of their match against FaZe, as they are flying out of Poland tomorrow morning.