VALORANT Challengers CIS: Milestone will not resume in the 2023 VCT season

After "thoughtful consideration" by the EMEA Challengers League management, Riot Games has confirmed that the VALORANT Challengers League for the CIS area, Challengers CIS: Milestone, will not restart in the 2023 VCT season.

In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Milestone, which had previously run as one of six EMEA regional leagues in 2022, was discontinued in March of this year. The league at the time comprised of eight clubs with a predominance of Russian players. Matches were delayed at the beginning of March after just two weeks of play before the league as a whole was suspended for the majority of the year. Due to the invasion's timing, EMEA Challengers One group stage matches were postponed and the previous Gambit team was required to participate as Masters 3 Champions (M3C) for the remainder of the year.

Previously, players from Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan were allowed to compete in the CIS League. While it may be sad for them not to have their own league to fight in, Riot has enabled those players to continue to compete "as EMEA residents in VCT and Challengers." Thus, these athletes are theoretically eligible to play for any team in any EMEA Challengers zone. Teams may add any EMEA resident to their squads, as long as they have a minimum of three players from the league's designated region. The CIS league and territories are no longer addressed in the EMEA rulebook's glossary, however the nations that once comprised the CIS area are still listed in the EMEA competitive region list.