- July 22, 2026
- 1:58 pm
- Ukraine
In the incomplete July 2026, Russian strikes destroyed or seriously damaged more than 1.5 million copies of Ukrainian books. Behind this figure are burned children’s editions, fiction, destroyed warehouses, ruined printing houses, and hundreds of thousands of school textbooks that were already supposed to be sent to Ukrainian schools.
The Ukrainian Book Institute called the events a deliberate destruction of Ukrainian culture, knowledge, and memory. In just a few weeks, Russian attacks affected publishers BookChef, ‘Knigolav’, ‘Mamine Sonechko’, Mison, publishing house ARK.UA, and one of the largest Ukrainian printing houses — ‘Konvi’.
This is not a single accidental fire or a separate damaged warehouse. In July, strikes consistently destroyed different parts of the book industry: storage of finished editions, production, publishing offices, equipment, layouts of future books, and educational literature for children.
800 thousand books burned at the beginning of July
The first huge loss occurred on the night of July 2, 2026. A Russian strike destroyed the central warehouse of Denka Logistics — the logistics partner of BookChef publishing house.
The warehouse contained most of the publisher’s products. According to BookChef’s estimate, about 800 thousand books were lost in the fire, and the material damage exceeded 100 million hryvnias. Employees were not harmed, but the publisher lost a significant portion of already printed editions ready for sale and shipment to readers.
The destruction of such a number of books cannot be reduced only to the cost of paper, printing, and warehouse rent. Each edition involves acquired copyrights, the work of translators, editors, proofreaders, designers, printing houses, and logistics companies. Reproduction requires months of work and new financial investments.
Six days later, on July 8, a Russian attack destroyed the office of the Kyiv children’s publishing house ‘Mamine Sonechko’. The premises stored books, magazines, and other printed products for children. After the hit, a fire started, destroying part of the editions. The exact number of lost copies was not disclosed by the publisher.
Night of July 19: almost a million books in a few hours
The heaviest consequences for the Ukrainian book industry came from a massive strike on the night of July 19, 2026.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia used 166 air attack means: 41 missiles of various types and 125 drones. The main direction of the attack was Kyiv. Ukrainian air defense shot down or suppressed 18 missiles and 108 drones, but some targets reached the capital. One person died in Kyiv, and 16 were injured. Residential buildings, a dormitory, warehouses, cars, a metro station, and other civilian objects were damaged.
One of the hits was on the ‘Konvi’ printing house — a large full-cycle printing enterprise. Books, magazines, catalogs, and school textbooks for dozens of Ukrainian publishers were printed here.
After the hit by a Russian ballistic missile, the huge production workshops were left without a roof. Printing and binding equipment was destroyed or flooded during the fire extinguishing, and office premises were completely burned out. People working at the printing house were not harmed.
Inside were about 250 thousand textbooks for ninth-grade students. The books were fully printed, packed, and prepared for shipment to Ukrainian schools before the start of the new school year.
Approximately 350 thousand copies and printing blanks were seriously damaged. Among them were textbooks for fourth grades and books from publishers ‘Ranok’, ‘Hramota’, ‘Litera LTD’, ‘Linguist’, ‘Knigolav’, ‘Laboratory’, ‘Artbooks’, ASSA, ‘Kalamar’, ‘Atena’, ‘Aston’, BookChef, Mison, ‘Higher School’, ‘Medicine’, ‘Apriori’, and others.
On the same night, a Russian strike completely destroyed a warehouse of the ‘Knigolav’ publishing house located elsewhere. About 250 thousand books — the result of months of work by authors, publishers, and printing houses — burned in the fire. None of the employees were harmed, but the publisher warned of delays in fulfilling orders.
Thus, only on the night of July 19, the Ukrainian book industry lost about 250 thousand books at the ‘Konvi’ printing house, another 250 thousand at the ‘Knigolav’ warehouse, and approximately 350 thousand copies and unfinished editions were significantly damaged.
The general director of the ‘Ranok’ publishing house, Viktor Kruglov, estimated the total losses of that night at almost a million books. He stated that the destroyed textbooks would be reprinted despite the destruction of equipment and the urgent need to find free capacities at other enterprises.
A strike just before the school year
The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine is still clarifying the exact number of destroyed textbooks. In 2026, the state planned to print about 8 million copies of educational literature for ninth-grade students.
The Ministry, together with publishers and the Institute for Modernization of Educational Content, must determine which textbooks need to be urgently reprinted so that schools receive them on time.
But restoring an edition does not mean simply pressing the print button again. This requires paper, ink, binding materials, funding, available equipment, employee work, and free production lines. At the same time, Ukrainian printing houses need to fulfill already planned orders from other publishers.
The head of the Ukrainian Book Institute, Oleksandra Koval, stated that to restore one million lost books, the government urgently needs to allocate approximately 150–200 million hryvnias.
To understand the scale: in the entire year of 2025, slightly more than 33 million copies of books and brochures were published in Ukraine. The loss of 1.5 million copies over several weeks in July is comparable to about 4.5% of the country’s total annual book circulation.
At the same time, the Ukrainian book market was already in a difficult position before the new destructions. The number of titles was increasing, but average print runs were decreasing, and the real income of publishers was practically not growing due to inflation. For many small publishers, the destruction of a warehouse or a large edition can mean the loss of a significant part of working capital and a threat to further existence.
From ‘Factor-Druk’ to ‘Konvi’
The current destructions continue a series of strikes that have already caused severe damage to Ukrainian book infrastructure.
On May 23, 2024, a Russian missile hit the Kharkiv printing house ‘Factor-Druk’, where books of many Ukrainian publishers were printed. Seven employees of the enterprise died then, and another 22 people were injured. Equipment and almost 50 thousand books were destroyed.
The strike on ‘Factor-Druk’ occurred on the first day of the International Book Fair in Warsaw. Burned Ukrainian books became one of the symbols of the destruction of Ukrainian culture during the war.
In subsequent years, bookstores, libraries, publishing warehouses, and other cultural institutions were damaged. As of the end of June 2026, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine recorded 1,949 damaged or destroyed cultural heritage objects and 2,576 cultural infrastructure objects.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has also destroyed or damaged more than 850 Ukrainian libraries. These figures remain incomplete, as some occupied territories are inaccessible for full documentation.
Among the destroyed editions could be books by Israeli authors and publications about Jewish history
The destruction of Ukrainian book warehouses and the ‘Konvi’ printing house affected publishers whose catalogs included books by Israeli authors, works about the Holocaust, Jewish resistance, Aliyah, the history of Israel, and the revival of Hebrew.
About 800 thousand books were lost at the warehouse of the logistics partner of the BookChef publishing house. The publisher released works by Israeli historian and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Yuval Noah Harari in Ukrainian, including ‘Sapiens’, ‘Homo Deus’, and ’21 Lessons for the 21st Century’.
In the assortment associated with BookChef, there were also books by Israeli authors about Mossad activities, women in Israeli intelligence, and the story of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda — the man who played a key role in the revival of Hebrew as a modern spoken language.
The ‘Knigolav’ publishing house, which lost about 250 thousand books, published literature directly related to Jewish history. Among such publications were books about Jewish women in the resistance movement in Nazi ghettos, about Rudolf Vrba’s escape from Auschwitz, about the fates of Holocaust survivors and their resettlement in Israel.
The publisher’s catalog also included the novel ‘The Boy with the Star of David’, the plot of which is related to the rescue of Jewish children by the ‘Youth Aliyah’ organization, the Israeli fleet, and the history of the creation of the State of Israel.
There is also a separate connection with the destroyed ‘Konvi’ printing house. In previous years, the enterprise printed Ukrainian educational and methodological materials on teaching Hebrew, Jewish culture, and working with cultural texts in Hebrew lessons.
However, publishers have not yet published a complete list of all destroyed titles. Therefore, it is impossible to reliably state how many books by Israeli authors or publications on Jewish topics burned during the July attacks.
There is also no confirmation yet that among the destroyed 250 thousand school textbooks were separate editions for Jewish schools in Ukraine or Hebrew textbooks.
However, the already established facts show that Russian strikes affected the book infrastructure that distributed works by Israeli authors in Ukraine, preserved the memory of the Holocaust, told about Jewish resistance, and acquainted Ukrainian readers with the history of Israel and modern Hebrew.
Why the destruction of books is more than material damage
There are no investigation results yet that allow us to assert that each specific publisher or each book warehouse was pre-selected by the Russian military as a separate target.
However, the repetition of such strikes and the cumulative scale of destruction create an obvious picture: the Russian war is destroying the entire chain that ensures the existence of the Ukrainian book. Not only finished editions are burning. Printing presses, binding lines, warehouses, publishing computers, original layouts, offices, libraries, and educational institutions are being destroyed.
NAnews — Israel News notes: for Israeli society, it is especially clear why the destruction of books cannot be perceived solely as economic damage. A book preserves language, testimonies, names, family history, and national memory. By destroying book infrastructure, the aggressor strikes at the society’s ability to pass on its own history to future generations.
It is especially indicative that among the destroyed editions were textbooks prepared for schoolchildren. Their loss means that Ukrainian publishers and the state must, in wartime conditions, find money, materials, and equipment again so that children can start the school year with the necessary books.
But the July attacks showed something else. Just a few hours after the destructions, publishers announced that they would restore the editions. Printing houses are looking for opportunities to continue production, readers are ordering books from affected publishers, and employees are clearing debris and saving surviving products.
Russia can burn paper and destroy printing presses. But as long as Ukrainian books are being reprinted, bought, read, and passed on to children, it fails to destroy Ukrainian culture and memory.