CGTrader Suspends Services in Russia and Belarus in Support of Ukraine

What appeared unthinkable only a few weeks ago is now a disturbing reality for Ukrainians, Europeans, and the world. It has to stop.

Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, our team has been active in making donations and volunteering to help those that make it across the border.

To support the growing humanitarian crisis in the region, CGTrader has already donated to NGO Blue/Yellow and is working on various other initiatives to increase our support that will be announced soon.

But as we continue to watch the violent attacks and tragic loss of innocent life, we have to do more. We believe that we have a responsibility to ensure our services are not being used in support of this unlawful war, which also applies to the tax income as a result of our operations.

To stand together with Ukraine as well as condemn the aggression by the Russian government, we have taken the decision to stop working with buyers and sellers operating in Russia as well as freelance designers.

This is important in order to prevent us from contributing to financing the regime through taxes. The ban will also extend to the Belarus market for aiding this horrific crime against humanity.

It is a painful decision to stop working with sellers and designers who were a big part of our community. We deeply regret the impact this will have, and our only hope is that we can work together again soon. Until then, we accept our moral responsibility to support democracy and humanity.

Further details on these actions are listed below.

CGTrader Relations with Designers

• CGTrader has many Ukrainian employees and designers who are affected. Many cannot be contacted, and we have seen in a major drop in traffic and site usage from Ukraine.
• We also have a large number of Russian and Belarusian designers, and have taken the difficult decision to follow the sanctions that are being imposed by most other companies and institutions.
• We deeply regret the impact that this war is having on the 3D community.

Restrictions on Marketplace Sellers

• Models from all sellers in Russia and Belarus will be suspended and won’t appear in the search results, but will not be deleted. It is up to each seller to decide if they want to keep their models on the marketplace to sell again in the future.
• Sellers from Russia and Belarus will not have the ability to upload new models since there will be no possibility to sell them on marketplace.
• Payment agreement updates for these sellers will be frozen until sanctions are over. All payouts will be on hold due to restrictions imposed by payment providers (Paypal, Payoneer, Bank sanctions).
• If the seller moves to another country and wants to continue their services, documents should be provided to our support team and it will be possible to continue operations.

Restrictions on Marketplace Buyers

• Users coming from Russia and Belarus will not be able to purchase or download any new models.
• Users will only be able to browse and log into the site to download their previously purchased models.

Restrictions on Wildcat Freelance Designers

• Current Wildcat designers operating from Russia and Belarus will not be able to take new modeling tasks.
• All unfinished modeling tasks by these designers will be canceled.
• Payouts have been suspended due to restrictions imposed by payment providers (Paypal, Payoneer, Bank sanctions) and will be paid once the sanctions are over. This includes payment for partially done and completed work.
• We will not be accepting new freelance designers from Russia and Belarus to the Wildcat platform.
• If the designer moves to another country and wants to continue their work, documents should be provided to our support team and it will be possible to continue operations.

#StandwithUkraine

Over the coming days, we continue to evaluate additional ways to show our support to Ukraine in this time. Some of the next steps we will take include

• Recruiting more Ukrainian specialists.
• Adding the Ukraine flag to Ukrainian models so that buyers can support them by choosing those models.
• Faster payouts to Ukrainian designers.
• Promoting Ukrainian designers on social media channels.

Our thoughts are with everyone whose lives are affected. This is an attack on all of us and we stand together.

Слава Україні!