Russia has completed the nationalisation of the World of Tanks game developer Lesta Games, one of Russia’s most successful online games, with the Tagansky District Court of Moscow ordering the seizure of the Russian assets of the company on the extremism charges, according to The Bell.

The grounds for the seizure were the designation of Wargaming founder Viktor Kisly and Lesta owner Malik Khatazhaev as an "extremist organisation" following a case launched by the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The tech savvy Russians are a world power in the gaming world, which has existed without much government interference over the last two decades. But following  the invasion of Ukraine over three years ago the sector has been shaken to its foundation with a tsunami of M&A  deals and well connected players have made bids for some of Russia’s most attractive online properties. Russian search engine giant Yandex has already been broken up and sold, with e-commerce giant Ozon.ru next in the firing line, according to bne IntelliNews sources in Russia. Kremlin-connected VK has been pouring money into acquisitions, while e-commerce market leader Wildberries was in a very weird merger with an outdoor billboard company called Russ that is ten times smaller than it and brings nothing to the party.

Now it is World of Tanks’ turn. The message is clear:  leaving Russia is a clear condemnation of Putin’s war. While Khatazhaev has not gone as far as Yandex’s founder Arkady Volozh, who openly called the Ukraine "special military operation" (SVO) a barbaric war and was forced to leave Russia as a result, his implicit criticism is enough to get your assets nationalised.

As followed by bne IntelliNews, Lesta Games, which now manages the Russian versions of both games, was spun off from Wargaming in 2022 after Kislyi withdrew from Russia and Belarus amid the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine.

In 2022, Lesta had taken over the Russian part of Wargaming's business, the developer of the World of Tanks. The case centres on a 2023 fundraiser organised by Wargaming for a Ukrainian charity. Despite actively demonstrating loyalty and supporting troops in the SVO, Russian Lesta failed to prove it had no involvement.

After the war began in 2022, Wargaming, which developed World of Tanks and World of Warships, decided to split its business and carve out the part operating in Russia and Belarus. It was sold to a new owner, Malik Khatazhaev, the founder of Lesta Games.

Previously, Lesta was a special effects studio that collaborated with Wargaming and was eventually fully acquired by the partner. By 2022, Khatazhaev had led Wargaming’s Russian office for many years.

The main accusation against Lesta was a fundraiser for a Ukrainian foundation that Wargaming organised in World of Tanks in 2023, after the sale and business separation. The campaign was not held in the Russian version of the game.

According to two unnamed gaming market sources cited by The Bell, Lesta was targeted because the company remained linked to Wargaming even after their formal split.

In 2024 Lesta posted RUB35bn ($390mn) in revenue (a 40% increase from the previous year) and RUB16bn in net profit. World of Tanks has 60mn registered accounts and an estimated monthly active user base of 6.5mn. Russian Forbes ranked Lesta 10th among the most valuable Runet companies and valued it at $1.5bn, twice the valuation of state-controlled VK internet major.

Previously Kommersant daily named investment fund Gem Capital, linked to former Gazprom executive Alexander Paliy, as one contender for Lesta. The daily claimed Gem Capital had tried to buy Lesta from Khatazhaev in late 2024, but he refused.

The article was later removed from the site, and Gem Capital denied any interest, according to The Bell. VK was also named by The Bell’s sources as a possible interested party.

However, Wargaming and the founder Kisly retained the right to revoke Lesta’s game licences in the event of a hostile takeover. In that case, the games could lose access to app stores and Steam, the world’s largest game distribution platform.

Amid a large-scale redistribution of wealth in Russian elites following the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, a number of major assets privatised in the 1990s have been de-facto renationalised by the state.

The analysts surveyed by The Bell now warn that the “extremism” cases might become a more common legal tool for nationalisation of assets in Russia.