The court recognized the owners of Lesta Games and Wargaming as extremists.
The Tagansky Court of Moscow has satisfied the lawsuit of the Prosecutor General’s Office to ban and recognize as extremist the activities of the owners of Wargaming Victor Kislyy and Lesta Malik Khatazhaev. 100% of shares of their companies in Russia have been converted to the state income.
According to the press service of the Moscow courts, the lawsuit of the Prosecutor General’s Office refers to LLC “Lesta”, LLC “Lesta Games Agency”, Viktor Kisly and Malik Khatazhaev. The supervisory agency demanded to ban the work of the “association in connection with the implementation of extremist activities” in April 2025.
A source in law enforcement agencies told Kommersant that “the judicial act does not concern and does not apply to the group of companies “Lesta”, its contractors and clients, including users of computer games. According to the interlocutor, the court’s decision will not entail the termination of the games World of Tanks (called World of Tanks in Russia until 2022), World of Warships (World of Warships) and Tanks Blitz.
As the source added, the reason for banning and recognizing the extremist activities of Viktor Kisly and Malik Khatazhaev was their material support of Ukraine. “At the expense of their income, they financed funds specializing in the purchase of equipment for the armed forces of Ukraine,” he said.
In April 2022, the developer and publisher of computer games Wargaming announced its withdrawal from Russia, the rights to the games World of Tanks and World of Warships were transferred to Lesta. In April 2025, the General Prosecutor’s Office seized Lesta’s assets.
The studio was founded in 1991 in St. Petersburg by Russian entrepreneur Malik Khatazhaev (a member of an extremist association banned in Russia). Since 2001 it has been developing computer games. The most famous projects: “Antanta” (2003), “Steel Monsters” (2005), “9 Company” (2008).
In 2011 it became a part of the international corporation Wargaming, founded by the Belarusian entrepreneur Viktor Kisly (is a member of the extremist and banned in the Russian Federation association) in 1998 and subsequently created the popular online game World of Tanks. According to Kommersant sources, Wargaming’s global revenue from the World of Tanks project was up to $800 million, with about 50% coming from Russia and Belarus. As part of Wargaming Lesta Games worked on the development of the game World of Warships.
In April 2022, Wargaming announced its withdrawal from Russia and Belarus, transferring assets to Mr. Khatazhaev (a member of an extremist association banned in Russia). In October of the same year, Lesta Games announced the rebranding of World of Tanks, World of Warships and World of Tanks Blitz games, which became distributed in Russia and Belarus under the names World of Tanks, World of Warships and Tanks Blitz, respectively.
In November 2022, the studio announced that it was negotiating joint projects with Yandex, Rostelecom and other Russian companies. In the same year, it signed a memorandum with VK on cooperation on the development of online games.
In 2024, Lesta Games changed its name to Lesta Games. At the end of 2024, it received revenue of 35 billion rubles, which was the highest result in the company’s history. In the same year Lesta Games changed its beneficiary – the Chinese Lesta Hong Kong Limited ceased to be the main founder (99%) of the Russian legal entity Lesta Games (LLC Lesta). The founder of the studio Malik Khatajaev (a member of an extremist association banned in the Russian Federation) became the founder.
In January 2025, Lesta Games and the National Research University Higher School of Economics announced the launch of a joint educational program “Programming and Engineering of Computer Games”.
According to the company, the audience of its projects is more than 60 million registered players. In March 2024, it acquired a 6,000-square-meter business center in Izvestkovy Pereulok near Taganskaya metro station in Moscow. The company also has offices in St. Petersburg and Tashkent.