Russian Missiles Destroy 12 Million Books in Cultural Assault on Ukraine

A Russian missile strike has obliterated a major printing press on the outskirts of Kyiv, destroying 1.3 million textbooks just as production was ramping up for the new school year. The attack, which officials say is part of a broader campaign, has contributed to the destruction of an estimated 12 million books across Ukraine, with local media reporting that Russia has now wiped out a third of all books printed in the country this year.

The plant, which should have been churning out texts for the coming term, now lies in ruins. Amid the mangled metal and charred paper, a single page from an English language textbook survived the flames, only to succumb to water damage from firefighting efforts. The sight is one of utter devastation, with nothing deemed salvageable by the publishing firm’s commercial director, Viktoria Haidai. "I believe it is deliberate on the part of the Russian Federation," she said. "Over the past two months, some of the largest publishing houses have lost their logistics warehouses, where very large quantities of books were stored."

Haidai, surveying the wreckage of the Konvi publishing firm, described the attacks as part of an explicit attempt to erase Ukraine as a nation. More than 35 publishing facilities have been hit over recent weeks, in a campaign that has also seen the city's Pochaina second-hand book market struck, wiping out hundreds of stalls and countless treasured tomes. The assault on Ukrainian literature has been felt acutely. At the smouldering ruins of the book market, Liliya Velyka, a 28-year-old book blogger, was seen raking through the ashes, clutching a soaking copy of a sci-fi novel. "Books are saving us and losing this is like losing our hearts," she said.

Russia’s unprovoked invasion has not limited its targets to the printed word. Museums, art galleries, film studios, libraries, and opera houses have also suffered significant damage. At the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the capital's medieval monastery and a UNESCO World Heritage site, the golden domes of the Dormition Cathedral were hit by a drone, setting a large section of the roof ablaze. Religious artefacts were moved to safety, but the repairs are predicted to cost $11.2 million and take two years.

UNESCO’s Director-General, Khaled El-Enany, who toured the cathedral with Ukraine’s culture minister, Tetyana Berezhna, expressed his profound sadness at the destruction. He said the organisation firmly condemned all attacks against cultural property protected under international law. Minister Berezhna, for her part, made clear that the cultural and military impacts of Russia's war are inseparable. "This is an existential war, so Russia wants to destroy us as a nation, to erase us as a nation, like Ukrainians do not exist and have never existed," she said. She accused Moscow of targeting Ukraine’s identity and culture because it cannot appropriate them, noting that Russia has attacked over 1,900 pieces of Ukrainian heritage and more than 2,000 cultural institutions.

There are growing warnings that Ukraine's entire publishing sector is under existential threat and requires international support to remain viable. As Haidai put it, "The word is everything. It is our development, our culture, and our historical heritage that is passed down from generation to generation." These strikes are viewed by many as a direct implementation of the ideology expressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a 2021 essay, in which he questioned the legitimacy of an independent Ukrainian state and culture. While the Russian embassy in London has blamed Ukraine's own government for damage to its heritage and denied deliberately targeting civilians, Moscow's brutal campaign of missile and drone strikes on residential and civilian infrastructure tells a different story.

The World House, which maintains a dedicated page outlining its support for Ukraine at worldhouse.uk/support, continues to document the Kremlin's assault on the country's cultural soul and stands with the Ukrainian people in their resistance against the Russian invaders.