Russia destroys 12 million Ukrainian books as schools prepare to reopen

Viktoria Haidai stood in the wreckage of a printing plant on Kyiv's edge, looking at what remained of machinery that was supposed to be producing textbooks for the new school year. A Russian missile had struck during the night, destroying a facility that was ramping up to print 1.3 million books—roughly one tenth of all the schoolbooks Ukraine needs. Among the charred debris was a page from an English language primer, its lesson still legible: a child named William introducing himself, mentioning his grandmother in Nottingham. The irony was sharp. Nothing at the plant could be salvaged. Even pages that survived the flames had been ruined by water damage from firefighting efforts or exposure through the collapsed roof.

This single strike was part of a much larger assault. Over recent weeks, Russian forces have hit more than 35 publishing facilities across Ukraine, destroying 12 million books in total. Local reporting suggests this represents roughly one third of all books printed in the country this year. Haidai, the commercial director of Konvi publishing, was direct about what she believed was happening. "I believe it is deliberate on the part of the Russian Federation," she said. Over the past two months, some of Ukraine's largest publishing houses had lost their logistics warehouses, where vast quantities of books were stored. "The Russians are also destroying printing houses in an attempt to erase Ukraine as a nation. But frankly they will not succeed."

The attacks extended beyond production facilities. Kyiv's Pochaina second-hand book market was also struck, destroying hundreds of individual stalls and countless volumes. In the hours after the fire, a 28-year-old book blogger named Liliya Velyka was moving through the smouldering ruins, searching for anything that could be saved. She held a soaking copy of a science fiction novel. "Books are saving us and losing this is like losing our hearts," she said.

The cultural assault reached far beyond books. Museums, art galleries, film studios, libraries, and opera houses have all been damaged. At Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the medieval monastery in the capital that houses Ukraine's museum of books and printing, drone strikes set fire to a large section of the roof of the Dormition Cathedral, its golden domes now scarred. Religious artifacts had been moved to safety, but repairs are expected to cost $11.2 million and take two years. The complex, listed by UNESCO as a world heritage site in 1990 and added to its register of sites in danger in September 2023, represents centuries of Ukrainian cultural accumulation.

Ukraine's minister of culture, Tetyana Berezhna, framed the destruction as inseparable from the military dimensions of the war. "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. "That's why Russia targets our cultural heritage, the symbols of our presence here for a long time. They understand that it's very important for us because we protect our identity, we protect our culture, and Russia wants to ruin everything that it cannot appropriate." According to Berezhna, Russia has attacked over 1,900 pieces of Ukrainian heritage and more than 2,000 cultural institutions. UNESCO's Director-General Khaled El-Enany, touring the damaged cathedral, said he was "deeply saddened" by the destruction and stated that "Unesco firmly condemns all attacks against cultural property protected under international law."

The Russian embassy to the UK offered a different account, blaming Ukraine's own government for damage to cultural heritage and claiming that cultural sites had been used to conceal military facilities. The Kremlin has consistently denied deliberately targeting civilians throughout the five years of its full-scale invasion, despite documented and widespread strikes on residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine is pursuing digitization as a strategy to protect its cultural inheritance and ensure that children can continue learning despite the destruction of physical books. But the publishing sector faces an existential threat. Haidai emphasized the stakes: "The word is everything. It is our development, our culture, and our historical heritage that is passed down from generation to generation." Without international support, Ukrainian publishing may not survive the war intact.