UKRAINE, KHARKIV, Aug. 28 — Ukraine, along with international partners, launches a fund supporting small publishers, said Tetiana Berezhna, the Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine, during her visit to the damaged building of Ranok publishing house. 

On Aug. 1, Russian forces attacked the storage building of Ranok publishing house, sparking a fire that caught the whole building. Viktor Kruglov, Rankok’s CEO, said that the Russian attack burned down more than 1,1 million books. Among damaged issues 615,000 Ranok’s schoolbooks and nearly 500,000 books of the other publishing houses, some of them are Ranok’s subsidiary companies, while the others are independent publishers who used corporation logistical services and storage. 

Berezhna said that Russian forces have destroyed 10 million Ukrainian books in total, with losses to the country’s publishing industry totalling about $26 million. 

With the launch of the support fund, small Ukrainian publishers will be able to receive financial assistance that is currently out of reach for some of them because they are too small to qualify state aid, Berezhna said. 

She added that the Kyiv School of Economics will serve as operator of the grant program to channel funds from international partners to small publishing houses. 

Read more

  • Russian attack on Zmiiv in Kharkiv oblast kills 38-year-old woman

This summer, Russia bombs Kharkiv as much as it can, and our newsroom keeps working despite it all. If you want to support us amidst it all, please consider buying us a $5 coffee or subscribing to our community long-term.