Virtus.pro announce mir as a new in-game leader

Virtus.pro announced Nikolay “mir” Bityukov as a new in-game leader on Friday, February 20, marking a return of the Russian player after nearly two years.

Virtus.pro are in the midst of a major Counter-Strike 2 roster rebuilding process, which began earlier this month with the departure of Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy and the benching of Evgeniy “FL1T” Lebedev and Petr “fame” Bolyshev.

While Virtus.pro have yet to fill in all the gaps, they have found a new in-game leader in mir, who rejoins the Russian outfit for the first time since April 2024.

The 30-year-old, who was part of Virtus.pro in 2023-2024, is set to return to the arena despite not having played competitive CS since leaving the team.

His last official match came in April 2024, when mir helped VP place in the top six at Intel Extreme Masters Chengdu.

• 

  Fast Payouts

He has since appeared in a couple of FACEIT Pro League events and has, earlier this month, attended global open qualifiers for IEM Atlanta.

Mir is the first new signing VP have announced since the promotion of Vladimir “b1st” Krasikov from the academy lineup. While the Russian team have been experimenting with different roster iterations since, they’ve struggled to find much success in the upper echelons of competitive Counter-Strike.

Virtus.pro’s title drought extends to December 2023, when they won ESL Challenger at DreamHack Atlanta. While they have since produced a few deep playoff runs, VP’s most notable accomplishment of 2025 was a fifth-sixth place finish at IEM Katowice.

This year, Virtus.pro have played just five games and lost them all. That includes defeats to WW and RUSTEC during Exort Cataclysm CIS S1.

With mir’s return, Virtus.pro are two players short of completing their roster. However, with no tournaments lined up in the near future, the Russian squad have plenty of time to fill in the missing gaps.

• 

  The bookies' bookie