Agreed, but I will say it’s easy for Epic to have a “backbone” when it involves not paying out $200k. Seems like a perfect scenario for them, unless runner up makes a claim to the prize money.
The gray area of them playing from Belarus is not so gray in my opinion. Everyone knows they have Russian’s hand up their ass.
The right thing would be to exclude them from the competition in the first place.
No kudos to Epic Games for weaseling themselves out from paying prize money.