Following Team Vitality ’s elimination from VCT 2025: EMEA Stage 1, a public and personal dispute broke out on social platform X between Nikita "trexx" Cherednichenko and Nikita "Derke" Sirmitev, revealing previously undisclosed internal tensions.

Trexx, who remains on Team Vitality 's roster but currently sits on the bench, posted what he described as a "meme" after the team’s final loss to FUT Esports . The post provoked a response from Derke, who publicly expressed his frustrations with trexx:

When I was in conversations about joining this team, I had doubts about you as a person based on how you acted in your previous teams. I got told you wouldn’t be like that here, and I decided to give it a chance and try.

As a player, you’re amazing and really talented, you feel the game in a special way. All of us know that about you. But as a person, you were impossible to work with to the point where you wasted other people’s time, ruined practices, fully shut down in official matches because of your ego and made comments that hit people on a personal level - something a good teammate doesn’t do. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.

After the decision was made to bench you, none of us said anything bad about you publicly. We didn’t want to damage your reputation because we still had respect for you as a talented player.

Your tweet after our loss just confirmed that you’re still the same immature person I feared I’ll be teaming up with, following the same pattern of behavior we saw when playing together. All the best to you.
Nikita "Derke" Sirmitev

In response, trexx revealed that he was recently invited back to the starting lineup but declined:

Just to be clear — since you chose to go this deep: two weeks ago, after I was benched, you asked me to come back. I said no.

Everyone, including you, apologized to me — so now calling me toxic or indifferent is ridiculous.

I don’t see any point in starting drama or exposing how people behaved on the team — that’s why I only posted a meme, without any digs. I respect the fans and the organization, but I couldn’t return to a place where I was treated like that. Best of luck to you.
Nikita "trexx" Cherednichenko

The public argument ended there. After a strong showing at the EMEA Kickoff, Team Vitality struggled during EMEA Stage 1 and now heads into a break until the qualifiers for the Esports World Cup 2025 and EMEA Stage 2 begin in July.