To Avoid Russian State Media, CS:GO Being Used In Russia To Report On Ukraine Invasion

As you might imagine, there are a ton of restrictions to what news Russian citizens have access to. However, a Finnish newspaper has found a way around those restrictions and reports the reality of the war in Ukraine to Russians using a secret room on a custom map in CS:GO.

As pointed out by GamesRadar, Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat set up the custom map and secret room today, which just so happens to be World Press Freedom Day.

"Russians have very little chance to receive independent information about Putin's invasion of Ukraine," Helsingin Sanomat editor-in-chief Antero Mukka told GamesRadar+ in an email.

"However, the gaming world and gamers themselves are still left unchecked. That's why we decided to hide a newspaper inside the world's most popular war game. We built a map of a Slavic city devastated by a war, inside the game, with a secret room that offers Russian gamers an uncensored access to the horrors of the war in Ukraine in their native language."

The map is called "de-vonya" and is available to download with CS:GO if you want to check it out.