No, he is on the record as saying he was just frustrated. He is still in gaming, and looking for new partnerships in the gaming industry. He has not said he's leaving 1C Maddox, and reiterated that he isn't leaving gaming. Just looking for a new project. The whole Oleg is leaving forever doom brigade came from some off handed comment he made on Youtube at the end of an argument with some juvenile poster.

This is Exactly what the OP was talking about. Taking rumor and here say and spinning it as absolute fact. That is for tabloid journalists, and doesn't add or improve the topics at hand. Being worried about the known performance issues with the game, and being uncertain about whether or not you get it is fine, but using speculation, misinformation, rumor, and untruths and stating them as fact is unacceptable and down right despicable.

I do think that it is a really bad move from UBI to release this game now and it will cause great damage. I do remember already long time a go reading somewhere that the latest possible release date for the game is 31 of march 2011, so it is probably the last date they could release it without the contract falling through or something..

..but CoD will be butchered in the reviews for sure.

Especially if there is truth to the rumors that the first reviews of multiplayer (on a french forum) have been abysmal..

Agree on the not so good idea to release the game now.

Disagree on the culprit. 1C needed money, they chose the release date, not Ubi.

Oh, I had no idea, thanks for putting me straight.

It would be a great shame if he did leave the IL2 project. I wouldn't complain, it's his life and I'd understand if he was fed-up with us all. And I know he hasn't built this on his own, the team around him are very experienced. But this masterpiece in the making is his vision, and I am quite prepared to beg him to stay if it helps :)