Escape From Tarkov Casus Belli Event Guide

UPD: 04-10-2026 added information for quests 5.6.7. Use our promocode CRINGEBLOG for any of EFT bundles on our site

Casus Belli: Latin for "cause for war," which is an admirably theatrical way to announce that some masked idiots have been raiding Arena reward convoys. Ref, Tarkov's resident gambling mogul, is having a very bad week. Season Three of his precious Arena Seasons feature is on the line, shipments are getting hijacked, and his entire business model is circling the drain. Naturally, your job is to make this someone else's problem: by shooting five people in the face and picking up their masks. So come here and read this Escape From Tarkov Casus Belli Event Guide!

The Tarkov Arena Seasons Ref event kicked off on April 9, 2026 and runs through April 15 at 14:00 GMT / 10:00 AM EDT. It's available to all PvP and PvE players: provided your account was created or wiped after the November 2025 version 1.0 release. If you somehow never wiped through a major patch cycle, congratulations on your miserable stubbornness; this event is not for you. For everyone else: six days, four quests, and a whole lot of people dying in masks.

Important

The event ends April 15, 2026 at 14:00 GMT. If you start reading guides after that, you deserve the disappointment you are experiencing right now.

The full quest chain consists of four missions: Casus belli (from Ref), Backup Plan (from Ref), Short on Hands (from Skier, because corporate espionage is apparently a spectator sport here), and Run Aground. Two traders, two competing interests, five maps, and enough rifle ammo to solve most of Norvinsk's structural problems. Let's get into it.

• Trader: Ref
• Leads To: Backup Plan
• Kappa Required: No

Ref wants you to go find the people ransacking his reward convoys. His delivery system is getting dissected by some opportunistic pack of scavengers calling themselves Pillagers: a brand new enemy type added exclusively for this event. You can identify them by their Arena-tier gear and the fact that they wear decorative face masks, because apparently the apocalypse is also a fashion show.

Objectives

• Eliminate 5 Pillagers
• Hand over 3 Found-in-Raid painted CQCM masks

Where to Find Pillagers: Spawn Locations

The EFT Pillager spawn locations Customs Interchange Lighthouse Shoreline Woods are all five of the classic mid-tier Tarkov maps. Pillagers roam in groups of 3 to 4 per spawn, which is the universe's way of making sure the mask you need drops on the one guy who fell into a river. Notably absent from the party: Factory, Ground Zero, Streets, The Lab, Reserve. So if you were planning a cozy Lab run to handle this: you weren't, but just in case: no.

Efficiency Since Backup Plan sends you to Woods anyway, doing your Pillager kills on Woods first lets you stack progress across both quests without needing to book Escape from Tarkov leveling help.

Here's the part that will ruin someone's evening. The how to get found in raid painted CQCM masks answer is deceptively simple: kill Pillagers, loot their faces. Every Pillager carries one of the Atomic Defense CQCM ballistic mask variants Tarkov has introduced: all thirteen of them count toward the quest. The catch is the Found in Raid status, meaning you cannot buy them off the flea market, your friend cannot hand you three, and finding one on the ground does not count. You must personally murder the Pillager and extract alive with the mask. Death means the mask turns into "Found in Raid: no." A condition that cannot be appealed.

All thirteen variants are accepted. The quest does not care which three you bring, so stop farming for a specific skin. They are all equally valid, equally ugly, and equally the reason you are running this event for the fourth consecutive evening.

• Trader: Ref
• Requires: Casus Belli
• Leads To: Taking What's Mine (Pick Side)
• Kappa Required: No

Still no contact with the convoy because you're do not did Escape from Tarkov quests. Ref, ever the optimist, has decided the answer is to pre-position medical supplies at the places his crew is most likely to crawl toward if they survive. This is the kind of logistics planning that happens when you're running an illegal gambling ring and can't file incident reports. Your role: be the world's least efficient delivery driver, then shoot a riverbank worth of enemies on Customs.

Objectives

• Stash a Grizzly medkit in the large barn at the old sawmill on Woods
• Transit from Woods to Customs
• Eliminate any 6 targets on Customs
• Survive and extract from Customs

Where to Stash the Grizzly Medkit: Old Sawmill, Woods

The where to stash Grizzly medkit old sawmill Woods answer: the old sawmill is in the eastern part of the Woods map. It's a substantial landmark: a lumber camp with workshops, warehouses, and the specific large two-story barn with a basement that Ref keeps describing as a "good defensible position." Find the barn. Go inside. Place the Grizzly somewhere inside the building. Don't die on the way there. That's the full strategy.

The sawmill has been on Woods since patch 0.12.9 back in 2020 and was also famously a standalone map in Contract Wars, so if you have the institutional memory of a Tarkov veteran you already know this building like you know your therapy schedule. If you're newer, it's the large complex dead-center-east of the map: you cannot miss it because it has a boss spawn nearby and regularly hosts more trauma than a medical textbook.

Prep Acquire a Grizzly medkit before loading the raid. You can buy it from traders or find one in the hideout. Showing up to a "stash the medical supplies" quest without the medical supplies is a very Tarkov move and also completely pointless.

How to Transit from Woods to Customs

The how to transit from Woods to Customs EFT requirement is handled via Tarkov's Transit system. After you've placed the Grizzly in the barn and are ready to continue, find the Woods-to-Customs transit extraction point instead of a normal extract. This carries your character and whatever you're carrying directly into a Customs raid: no stash access, no menu, no opportunity to reconsider your life choices. You arrive on Customs already loaded in, so make sure your kit is good before you leave Woods. Anything you didn't bring doesn't exist.

The Customs Leg

Once on Customs you need to eliminate 6 targets: the quest says "any 6 targets," meaning Scavs, PMCs, Pillagers, whatever breathes and then stops. Customs is not a map that suffers from a shortage of targets. Ref's story says the convoy would be getting "torn apart in the shallows" near the river, so focus your violence somewhere vaguely near the water if you want to feel like you're participating in the narrative. Survive and extract. That's it.

• Trader: Skier
• Kappa Required: No

Here's where it gets funny for a Escape from Tarkov item boost. While Ref is sending you on errands, Skier: his competitor: is using the same event to torch Ref's entire operation. Skier's staff has been getting headhunted by the Arena's booming Seasons revenue, and he's had enough. His solution: intercept the reward shipments so there are no more rewards, no more hype, no more Seasons, and no more reason for his employees to consider jumping ship. Corporate sabotage dressed as contract killing. Business as usual.

In the Escape from Tarkov Short on Hands quest, Skier explains that mercs have shown up and started making his convoy interdiction efforts "difficult." Naturally, Skier Short on Hands PMC kills is the assignment: go murder five PMC operatives on the same maps where Pillagers spawn, proving that your loyalty, like your extraction route, is entirely situational.

Objectives

• Eliminate 5 PMC operatives on Woods, Customs, Interchange, Lighthouse, or Shoreline

Conflict Note

You are simultaneously helping Ref protect his convoy and helping Skier destroy it. Both traders are giving you money. Neither of them has figured this out. Do not tell them.

• Status: Added with Casus Belli event
• Full details: TBA

The EFT Run Aground quest was added alongside the other three quests in this event patch. Full objectives and dialogue for Run Aground are still being uncovered by the community as of the event's first day: Battlestate has a tradition of rolling out quest details gradually, presumably because making players discover things through collective suffering is cheaper than a dev blog. Check the official wiki and community resources for updates as the event progresses through its six-day window.

Time Sensitive

The event ends April 15, 2026. Run Aground details may be part of a later unlock in the chain or become available after completing prior quests. Prioritize Casus Belli and Backup Plan first.

General Tips: Do Not Die Immediately

A few EFT services on how to approach the Escape from Tarkov Backup Plan quest Ref chain and the event overall, from someone who has watched many people learn these lessons the expensive way:

• Stack objectives wherever possible. Pillager kills on Woods count toward Casus Belli and put you in position to hit the sawmill stash for Backup Plan in the same raid. Two quests, one extraction attempt, minimum dignity lost.
• Get your Grizzly before you go. The Backup Plan requires you to bring the medkit into the raid. It's not a quest item that spawns: you need to physically own one and put it in your rig before loading in.
• The transit is a one-way trip. When you transit from Woods to Customs, your character goes directly in. No stash trip, no vendor stop. Have your gun, have your ammo, have your sanity, in that order.
• Pillagers are not Scavs. They wear Arena-tier gear and painted CQCM masks. The masks make them visually distinct. If you're shooting someone in a mask, it's probably a Pillager. If it's a PMC in a mask, it's probably Short on Hands progress. Either way, shoot them.
• PMC kills for Short on Hands don't care which side. Any PMC operative on any of the five valid maps counts. This includes people who are having a far worse raid than you.
• Extract alive, every time. Found in Raid status dies with you. This is not a metaphor. Those three CQCM masks disappear if you don't make it out. The game respects neither your time nor your investment.

Remember how the guide mentioned that Backup Plan leads somewhere interesting? Here it is. After you help Ref stash his medical supplies and clear a riverbank, he circles back with more work: and this is where Battlestate's writers decided to give you a choice. A real one, with actual consequences for the questline. You can either continue assisting Ref and complete Taking What's Mine, or defect to Skier and complete Run Aground instead. Both lead to their own ending quests, and you cannot do both. Pick one. Live with it. The event ends April 15 regardless of your existential crisis.

Branching Point

After Backup Plan, you face a fork: Ref's path (Taking What's Mine → Morituri te salutant) or Skier's path (Run Aground → Habet, hoc habet!). These are mutually exclusive. Completing one branch locks out the other. Short on Hands can still be completed either way, since Skier issued it independently.

Path A: Ref's Side: "I Did Not Come This Far to Lose Season Three"

• Trader: Ref
• Requires: Backup Plan
• Leads To: Morituri te salutant
• Other Choice: Run Aground (Skier)
• Kappa Required: No
• Maps: Customs, Interchange, Lighthouse, Shoreline, Woods

Ref has located his convoy survivors and is organizing a recovery operation. He's setting up a new coastal collection run and wants the remaining Arena reward gear retrieved before Skier's people finish picking the corpse clean. Your contribution: kill more Pillagers, collect more masks, and stash them in a specific house on a Shoreline island. A house that, as Ref cheerfully notes, can be reached via an old barge crossing. Nothing about this is convenient, and nothing about Ref's logistical planning suggests he has ever personally set foot on Shoreline.

Objectives

• Eliminate 10 Pillagers
• (Optional) Do not assist Skier with preparing the ambush on Customs
• Stash 4 painted CQCM masks in the specified spot on Shoreline: the destroyed room in the house on the fishers' island

Location

The stash location is the destroyed room inside the house on the Shoreline island. Reach it via the old barge. The house is on the island: it's not a subtle landmark, you'll find it. Only the specified room counts as the stash point.

The optional objective: do not help Skier with his Customs ambush: is effectively a reminder that you are choosing a side and the questline is watching. If you've already completed Short on Hands for Skier, Ref has already judged you silently and moved on. The optional flag here is more atmospheric than mechanically punishing, but it does appear in your quest log as an accusation.

Rewards: Taking What's Mine

• +15,000 EXP
• 75 GP Coins (base)
• 79 GP EFT currency (Intel Center Lvl 1)
• 86 GP Coins (Intel Center Lvl 2)
• FN SCAR-H 7.62x51 Assault Rifle (Black)
• FN SCAR-H 7.62x51 20-round Magazine x3
• 7.62x51mm M61 ammo pack x5 (20 pcs)

• Trader: Ref
• Requires: Taking What's Mine
• Leads To:: (End of Ref's chain)
• Kappa Required: No
• Map: Interchange

"Those about to die salute you." Ref's surviving convoy crew made it to Interchange on foot after getting shredded on Customs. They stashed the main shipment near a yellow minibus in the container lot southwest of the mall. The actual prize: a case with Arena reward templates and blueprints: was hidden separately inside a TerraGroup container they managed to lock back up before being chased off. Ref hands you a keycard and tells you to go get it. He also expects you to kill ten PMC operatives while wearing a specific mask, because this is Tarkov and nobody hands you a case without making you earn it in the most theatrical way possible.

Objectives

• Locate and obtain the Case with templates on Interchange: inside a red TerraGroup container at the container lot, southwest of Ultra Mall (requires power + Object #21WS keycard, provided by Ref)
• Hand over the Case with templates
• Investigate the stash with new Arena rewards: find the MS2000 Marker on the yellow minibus at the same container lot
• Hand over the MS2000 Marker
• Eliminate 10 PMC operatives while wearing a painted CQCM mask: El Día de Muertos, Scars, or Target variants only

Critical

Both the Case with templates and the MS2000 Marker are quest items transferred to your quest inventory on pickup: but you lose them if you die before extracting. Do not die. This is always the advice. Now it has financial implications.

Keycard

The Object #21WS keycard is provided as starting equipment by Ref at quest acceptance. You also need power on at Interchange for the container. If power is off, find the power switch before hunting the container: otherwise the lock won't cooperate.

The red container is up top near the yellow minibus in the southwestern container lot. The minibus itself holds the MS2000 Marker at multiple possible spawn positions: check around and inside it. For the PMC kills, wear one of the three specified masks before engaging. Kills made without the correct mask equipped do not count. Ref's crew will also be present in masks, and the idea is that you can identify each other. Whether this actually prevents anyone from getting shot by mistake is a question for Battlestate's encounter design team.

Rewards: Morituri te salutant

• +17,000 EXP
• 200 GP Coins (base)
• 210 GP Coins (Intel Center Lvl 1)
• 230 GP Coins (Intel Center Lvl 2)
• Valuables Crate (Rare)
• Equipment Crate (Rare)
• Weapon Crate (Rare)

Ref confirms that Season Three EFT raids is happening, the blueprints are recovered, and he refuses to show you what's in the new collection ahead of release. He does, however, suggest you hold onto your cash. The man has been running a gladiatorial gambling ring through a warzone and his entire operation just got hit by a mid-tier arms dealer. His financial advice is probably fine.

• Trader: Skier
• Other Choice: Taking What's Mine (Ref)
• Leads To: Habet, hoc habet!
• Kappa Required: No

Skier has intercepted several convoys already and his staff morale problem has apparently resolved itself. Now he wants to finish the job: not just inconvenience Ref, but destroy the Season entirely. To do that, he needs you to mark the remaining stash on Interchange so his people can move on it. The stash is loaded into a yellow minibus at the container lot southwest of Ultra. Place two MS2000 Markers on it. While you're there, kill ten PMC operatives in a painted mask: Skier has hired other contractors for the same job and would like everyone to be wearing identifying gear so the fratricide stays manageable. He chose the "threatening" mask variants, which tells you everything about Skier's brand identity.

Objectives

• Mark the stash with 2 MS2000 Markers: place them on the yellow minibus at the container lot, southwest of Ultra Mall on Interchange
• Eliminate 10 PMC operatives while wearing a painted CQCM mask: Demon, Skull, or Demonic Face variants only

Starting Equipment

Skier provides 2 MS2000 Markers at quest start. They are placed on the minibus and consumed on use: they will be removed from your inventory when placed. Do not accidentally throw them in a bush.

The minibus is in the container lot at the southwestern corner of the Interchange map, near the exit toward Customs. The area has containers, fenced warehouses, and very little mercy. The MS2000 Markers go directly onto the vehicle. For the PMC kills, equip a Demon, Skull, or Demonic Face mask before engaging: same rule as Ref's path, kills without the correct mask equipped don't register.

Rewards: Run Aground

• +18,000 EXP
• 250,000 Roubles (base)
• 262,500 Roubles (Intel Center Lvl 1)
• 287,500 Roubles (Intel Center Lvl 2)
• Weapon Case

• Trader: Skier
• Requires: Run Aground
• Leads To:: (End of Skier's chain)
• Kappa Required: No
• Map: Interchange

"He's got it, he's got it!": the Roman arena crowd's way of announcing a killing blow, and Skier's way of announcing that he's having an excellent week. His gunners caught the tail end of Ref's convoy on Customs, the boats bolted toward Interchange empty, and that means the actual cargo is somewhere in the container lots near the mall. Skier does not want dusty masks. He wants whatever was in those boats: and he suspects it's something substantial, because nobody runs that hard over Arena participation trophies. Your job: find the crates, mark them, kill more PMCs in a dark mask, and deliver Skier's definitive answer to Ref's entire operation.

Objectives

• Mark the stash with new Arena rewards using 2 MS2000 Markers: yellow minibus at the container lot, southwest of Ultra Mall, Interchange
• Eliminate 10 PMC operatives while wearing a painted CQCM mask: Demon, Skull, or Demonic Face variants only

Starting Equipment

Skier provides 2 MS2000 Markers at quest start. Same drill as Run Aground: place them on the minibus, they are consumed on placement.

The location is the same container lot as Run Aground: the fenced warehouse area southwest of Ultra. The yellow minibus is your target. Multiple MS2000 Marker placement spots exist on and around the vehicle, so probe it thoroughly if the first attempt doesn't register. The PMC kills require the same three dark mask variants as before. Skier's post-completion dialogue makes abundantly clear that he considers this the end of Ref's Season Three and, by extension, Ref's credibility as a business competitor. Whether this is actually true is something the next Tarkov event will presumably address, presumably by adding another six quests in six days.

Rewards: Habet, hoc habet!

• +18,000 EXP
• 250,000 Roubles (base)
• 262,500 Roubles (Intel Center Lvl 1)
• 287,500 Roubles (Intel Center Lvl 2)

Which Side?

Ref's path ends with three Rare crates and the warm feeling of saving a gambling ring's supply chain. Skier's path ends with a Weapon Case and the satisfaction of watching a competitor's quarterly projections catch fire. The GP coins on Ref's track are higher overall. The Roubles on Skier's track are higher per quest. Choose based on what you actually need and pretend it was ideological.