Russia destroys or damages almost 1,000 libraries in Ukraine

Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language Taras Kremin reports.

“The cultural and educational institutions devastated by the Russians need fiction, educational and historical literature. During the full-scale invasion, Russian criminals destroyed or damaged almost a thousand libraries, and more than 200 million Ukrainian books with them,” the official said.

He emphasized that Ukraine's current goal is to restore library collections as much as possible and establish this as a state priority.

On the All-Ukrainian Library Day, which is celebrated annually on September 30, Kremin called on everyone to join in the restoration of library collections and support the Free to Read in Ukrainian project, which involves collecting Ukrainian-language books in Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions.

Strike on printing house in Kharkiv: what is known

On Thursday, May 23, Russia launched a missile attack on Kharkiv, hitting one of the largest printing houses in Europe, Factor-Druk, where books from almost all Ukrainian publishers are printed. The strike killed 7 people and injured 21 others. On May 25, the Vivat publishing house published the names of seven employees of the printing house in Kharkiv who were killed in the shelling.

“Factor Printing is a printing house that is part of the Factor group of companies. Vivat publishing house and Vivat bookstores are part of the holding, but the printing house also produced books for other publishers. The Family Leisure Club publishing house confirmed that it prints many of its books at Factor Printing.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 50 thousand books were burned. The owner of the Factor-Druk printing plant, Serhiy Polituchyi, said that the attack on the printing plant would reduce the capacity of the entire industry by 40%.

On May 27, the Vivat publishing house published a list of books destroyed by the Russian attack on the printing house in Kharkiv.

Later, it became known that after a Russian missile hit the Kharkiv printing house, Ukrainians decided to support Vivat and ordered more than 5,000 parcels.