Russian Strikes Wipe Out Nearly 10 Million Books Since May—Equal to 74% of Ukraine's 2026 Book Output

Russian strikes have destroyed or damaged at least 9.65 million books in Ukraine between May and August 2026 and severely disrupting the country's publishing industry.

According to analysis by Chytomo on August 3, at least 15 Russian attacks targeted bookstores, printing houses, publishing warehouses, and publishing offices during the four-month period.

Among the hardest-hit were publishers Ranok, Knygolav, BookChef, the Konvi printing house, and the KnygoLand bookstore chain.

The destroyed stock represents nearly 29% of Ukraine's total book and brochure print run for 2025, which amounted to 33.21 million copies, according to Chytomo. Compared with this year's production, the losses are even more significant. As of August 3, Ukrainian publishers had printed 13.09 million books in 2026, meaning the volumes destroyed over the summer equal roughly 74% of the country’s total output so far this year.

The attacks began escalating in May. Russian strikes damaged the logistics center of Ranok publishing house and a warehouse belonging to the One More Page publisher in Kyiv.

During the same month, the Bukva bookstore located in Kyiv’s shopping center was completely destroyed after a Russian strike sparked a fire that engulfed the premises and all books stored inside. Representatives of the bookstore said it would be impossible to restore the inventory at the destroyed location.

The publishing industry sustained particularly heavy losses in July, when Russia intensified attacks on publishing infrastructure. During the month, more than 1.5 million books were destroyed, while print runs belonging to at least 17 publishing houses were affected, including Ranok, Hramota, Litera LTD, Linhvist, Knygolav, Laboratoriia, Artbooks, ASSAб Athena, BookChef, MISON, The Old Lion Publishing House etc.

On July 2, a Russian strike on Kyiv damaged a warehouse belonging to BookChef's logistics partner, destroying approximately 800,000 books—the largest single loss of books caused by one attack since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion at that time.

BookChef said it would continue operations despite the destruction and urged readers to support the publisher by purchasing books to help finance new print runs.

On July 19, another strike destroyed a Knygolav warehouse, wiping out approximately 250,000 books. According to Chytomo, Ukraine's Ministry of Culture estimated the publisher's losses at around $445,500.

The most devastating attack came on August 2, when a Russian drone struck a shared warehouse in Kharkiv used by Ranok publishing house and the main distribution center of the KnygoLand bookstore chain.

“The textbooks included everything from French, German, world history, the history of Ukraine, art, law, health and safety, physics, chemistry, and English. There were more than 27 textbook titles in total, and all of them were supposed to be delivered to schools. Starting today, August 3, they were scheduled to be shipped out to schools,” Larisa Zubkova, director of the publisher's logistics center, said in a comment to Suspilne Kharkiv.

The facility stored books from publishers across Ukraine. In addition to Ranok's own inventory, it housed publications from ten publishing houses and imprints within the RNK-Ranok publishing group, including Readberry, Zhorzh, Fabula, One More Page, Varvar Publishing, Osnova, Svoie, Korali Books, Kenhuru, and 4mamas.

According to preliminary estimates, the strike destroyed approximately 600,000 school textbooks, around 28,000 book titles, and a total of 8 million printed copies—the largest single loss of books resulting from one attack during the full-scale war.

The destruction caused an estimated approximately $24 million in damage.

Overall, Russian forces launched approximately 126 ballistic missiles at Ukraine in July, including Iskander-M, North Korean KN-23, and S-300/S-400 systems, the highest monthly figure recorded so far this year.

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