Since the beginning of the year, more than 700 libraries have been destroyed or damaged in Ukraine.
Russia struck Ukraine’s major printing press, Faktor-Druk in Kharkiv, killing at least 5 employees among the 7 dead & 20 injured. Kharkiv is the heart of Ukraine’s publishing industry. This attack on culture underscores the genocidal nature of Russia’s war. Factor-print was bombed exactly one week before the Book Arsenal (book festival), just when dozens of publishing novelties were being rushed to print. The bombing was aimed at preventing these books from being published, at preventing Ukrainians from having book fairs - for a quarter of a century, the Russians had managed to silence them using other methods, and now that they have started to find their feet, they are using bombs and missiles. And all for the sake of the "great Russian culture". Forcing people to read this literature because of the absence of destroyed Ukrainian literature. My deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the Vivat publishing house (the bookshop belongs to them).
