On Refuting Information About Ties with russia
Recently, information has been spreading on the internet about our company's ties with the russian federation. We officially state: our company has no ties with the russian federation and does not cooperate with russian or pro-russian companies or websites. Our priorities are openness, integrity, honesty, and dedication to improving education in Ukraine and promoting Ukrainian worldwide.
Our team has been working since 2007 to improve the educational process in Ukraine. Our system has helped several generations of Ukrainian students learn programming and computer science. We were the only platform capable of conducting the All-Ukrainian Informatics Olympiad during the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide our services for conducting programming olympiads in Ukraine on a free, volunteer basis, because our mission is primarily to help teachers and their students.
It is very painful for us to see how today, due to baseless accusations, our reputation is being damaged. Everyone who knows me, Anton, Matviy, Kostya, Andriy, and other members of our team knows: we are patriots of our country, and we have helped raise the level of olympiad organization to a completely different level of quality.
These baseless accusations have caused real harm: students from Lviv region were unable to register to participate in the national stage of the informatics olympiad on the familiar platform.
About the Accusations
The Department of Education and Science of Lviv Regional State Administration and Lviv Regional Junior Academy of Sciences spread information about our company through local news sites, including ZAXID.NET and the official LODA website. Department of Education Director Oleh Paska publicly voiced these accusations at a briefing on December 10, 2025. These structures did not make any attempts to contact us and obtain comments or explanations from our team. No independent examination or investigation was conducted.
We reviewed the evidence presented by the aforementioned structures and found errors, technical illiteracy, distortion of facts, exaggerations, substitution of concepts, and misunderstanding of the situation.
Below we provide explanations for the accusations that were made public.
Use of Polygon System API
Our site has a feature to import problems from the russian Polygon system. This feature has been present for some time and is designed exclusively to help users migrate from the Polygon system to Eolymp. This is standard practice for competing systems — the ability to migrate your data from a competitor's system to your own. Just as you can import a Microsoft Word document into Google Documents. Our site is blocked in russia, so the target audience for this feature is users from foreign countries who currently use the Codeforces platform and the Polygon tool.
It is important to understand that:
This feature does not transmit data to Polygon, but only downloads problem data from Polygon. There is absolutely no other integration with this platform.
Using the Polygon API is open and does not require a contract, cooperation, or other interaction with a russian entity.
This feature is aimed at helping users migrate from the russian platform to the Ukrainian one.
Problems About russia
Our site was launched in 2007, long before the Revolution of Dignity, annexation, and full-scale invasion of russia into Ukraine. Since then, users have added over 12,000 problems from various sources. Problems that mention russia were added to the site in 2009-2012 and were accepted by our moderators at that time.
Due to the large number of problems added by users over 18 years of the platform's existence, these historical problems were not identified earlier. As soon as we became aware, we used all available tools to fix the situation and ensure that the problems mentioned by Lviv Regional State Administration are no longer present on the site.
Users from Unknown Countries
When registering on the site using a Google account, the user's country remains empty. "Unknown country" does not mean "russia" — it is simply a privacy setting.
The Eolymp site has been blocked in russia for many years using access control tools available to us. Russian users cannot access the platform, which is confirmed by their public complaints on the Codeforces platform about the inability to access Eolymp.
Users from russia Involved in Problem Testing
Contests are conducted by independent coordinators who invite authors and testers at their own discretion. Usually our team only checks problem authors, but not contest testers. Previously, our policy regarding not allowing russian citizens to test was unofficial and implicit. A week ago, we officially established this rule: russian citizens are not allowed to test rounds.
It is important to note:
Round testers do not receive compensation.
Round testers only have access to the contest before it starts. Under no circumstances do they have access to users, participants, or their personal data.
To our knowledge, only one user was involved over a year ago; this is not an ongoing or regular occurrence.
About the Facts
During their investigation, the "Risk Committee" discovered some facts that did not fit their version of events and simply ignored them:
Blocking russia. The committee acknowledged that Eolymp is blocked in russia, but decided not to give this fact any significance.
This is how the site appears to users from russia.
Company Registration. Eolymp is registered in Spain as a European company with Ukrainian founders. The EU is one of Ukraine's biggest supporters and constantly introduces new sanctions against russia. As a Spanish company, we are legally obligated to avoid any ties with russia. The committee did not mention this fact, instead creating the impression that we are a russian entity.
Founders' Social Media. The committee found my accounts on Facebook and X (Twitter), but did not look at their content. Anyone who reviewed my posts would have seen clear support for Ukraine and Ukrainian values.
My X account, where I call on my friends and colleagues to donate to the "Come Back Alive" foundation.
These facts did not fit the narrative about "ties with russia," so they were simply ignored.
In Conclusion
During the war in Ukraine, it is more important than ever to be careful about disinformation and verify the facts presented to you. This is exactly what teachers teach their students today. But for some reason, no one thought to contact us, to be critical and cautious, before spreading unverified information.
Perhaps this is just a big mistake, and Lviv educational institutions are trying to protect their students. But the way these facts are presented, how they repeat the narrative of one of the competing programming platforms, makes us think that this may be a coordinated attack on our platform and on us as individuals. We believe that someone is trying to use government institutions and connections to gain an advantage and seize what we have built.
We will not leave these accusations unanswered and will defend our honor and reputation by all legal means.
Glory to Ukraine!
