Russia has destroyed one-third of all books published in Ukraine

Full text

On September 25, The New York Times reported that Russian drones hit a plant on the edge of Kyiv. That plant was home to a printing press, and millions of children’s books.

This attack is but the latest in a pattern. Russia has been targeting presses and publishing houses across Ukraine for the past month, in a campaign that’s increasingly concerned with decimating Ukrainian culture.

Per the BBC , the aggressing country has destroyed “one third of all the books printed in Ukraine this year.” And according to the Times , Russian shelling has destroyed “as many as 15 million new books in recent months.”

Though an exact figure is hard to verify, this means that somewhere between a third and a half of Ukraine’s annual book production has been destroyed, leaving the country’s whole literary future in jeopardy.

Last week’s attack targeted Ranok Publishing House , one of Ukraine’s largest children’s book publishers. The timing was especially auspicious, given that the company was in the midst of it busy back-to-school season.

The attack destroyed eight million books in the Ranok warehouse, representing 28,000 titles. This figure includes 620,000 textbooks that were bound for student hands.

School books weren’t the only kind under threat. Victor Kruglov, Ranok’s chief executive, told United24 that comic books, international bestsellers, and contemporary Ukrainian fiction titles were also destroyed in a fire that burned for more than a week.

As United24 reports, losses included “6,408 copies of books by Holly Jackson, author of the international bestseller A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder … 5,807 copies by Mercedes Ron, author of the international hit Culpa Mía … and 6,647 copies were from Max Brallier’s The Last Kids on Earth series.”

The Ukrainian ministry of culture estimates that these losses are tantamount to at least $39.3 million (1.75 billion hryvnias) in damages. Which doesn’t even begin to address the cultural harm.

Kruglov also told the Times that this latest aggression is part of a larger strategy to eliminate Ukrainian cultural autonomy. “Russia thinks that books are more dangerous for them than military equipment,” he said.

Noting recent attacks on other presses, and the National Academy of Science, Kruglov claimed that Putin means to “deliberately damage, erase, extinguish everything which is connected with Ukrainian culture.”

It’s dreadful news, adding deep insult to a campaign that has already claimed thousands of lives. But despite the dark portent for his country’s literary future, Kruglov suggested to ABC that he’s short term optimistic about rebuilding.

“That’s probably what’s keeping us going,” he said. “[B]ecause we’re able to reprint books, and we’ve kept our team.”