Lawyer who became a game designer and created "World of Warships" sentenced to three years for politics
Valiantsin Tolkach studied in Krakow and managed to build a successful career as a lawyer in intellectual property. Later, he moved into IT to create computer games, a dream he had since childhood. He was arrested in the spring of 2025.
Valiantsin Tolkach. Photo from LinkedIn
Valiantsin Tolkach was born in Minsk in 1996. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at BSU, where he studied economic law, and later received a master's degree from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, specializing in "Intellectual Property and New Technologies."
He began his career at the National Center for Intellectual Property, where he represented the organization's interests in the Supreme Court. Later, he worked as a lawyer at the IT company Brightum, providing legal support for fintech projects and cryptocurrency startups.
After some time, Valiantsin decided to radically change his profession. In his profile, he wrote that he had been passionate about games for over 20 years and decided to turn his hobby into a job. From early 2023, he worked as a game designer at the St. Petersburg studio Lesta Games on the popular project "World of Warships," and from July 2024, he moved to Gear Games, where he was involved in the development of the mobile strategy Art of War 3.
In his free time, the guy played board games and was active in the community of board game enthusiasts for the Warhammer 40000 universe.
Tolkach was detained in the spring of 2025 in connection with the Hayun case.
Valiantsin was tried in the Minsk City Court on charges of "facilitating extremist activity" (Parts 1 and 2 of Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code).
According to "Viasna," Tolkach was sentenced to three years in a penal colony.