The ESL's decision followed similar bans by Danish esports league BLAST Premier on participation by Russian-based teams in tournaments for the "foreseeable future", arstechnica.com reports.

The ESL have been joined by Elisa Esports, a Finnish CS: GO tournament organiser that said it was suspending Russian-owned organisations "until further notice".

All three of these esports leagues have also cancelled planned events that were to be hosted in or around Russia in the future.

All of these responses followed an open letter from Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov calling on esports platforms to cancel events in Russia and Belarus and bar their players in an attempt to "motivate the citizens of Russia to proactively stop the disgraceful military aggression".

Companies including CD Projekt Red and Microsoft have responded to Fedorov's call to halt sales of new games and products in Russia and Belarus.

The ESL league stopped short of sanctioning individual players, however, though, saying they were "not complicit with this situation" and were welcome to still compete "under a neutral name, without representing their country, organisation, or their teams' sponsors on their clothing or otherwise."

ESL identified two teams that would be initially affected by these sanctions, Virtus.pro and Gambit.

The former is owned by ESFORCE, which is in turn owned by a partnership between Russian oil company Gazprom, insurance company Sogaz, and defence company Rostec, all of which have faced sanctions from the international community.

But in a defiant statement, Virtus.pro said: "We are not connected to the Government" of Russia and that the team was being punished only because "we make an impression" of such a Government link.

"There are no rational reasons to suspend us from playing in tournaments, apart from prejudice and pressure from the outside," the team wrote.

"We are facing a prime example of 'the cancel culture'."

Virtus.pro added that it will not forbid its players from participating in tournaments individually under ESL's proposed neutrality rules.

Gambit is owned by Russian telecom company Mobile TeleSystems, effectively controlled by Russian billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov.

In a statement issued before the ESL's decision, the team noted that many players "have family and friends living in Ukraine" and urged followers to "stay human in any situation, let's support each other during this difficult moment and let's not engage politics in esports, but engage [in] mutual respect and support."

Russia's official state news agency TASS reported the adverse reaction to these announcements by the Federation of Computer Sports of Russia

"We have always believed that sport should remain outside of politics, contributing to the rapprochement of people," the Federation said.

"But, unfortunately, both Russian esports players and teams, as well as the entire Russian-speaking audience of esports competitions, were subjected to discriminatory and offensive actions.

"Such actions destroy the fundamental traditions of sports that have been laid down for decades."