On May 23, the Russians fired about 15 S-300 missiles at Kharkiv and the Kharkiv district. During the attack, the Russians hit the binding shop of the “Faktor-Druk” printing house and destroyed books by Ukrainian authors, new world bestsellers, children’s books and textbooks. This was reported to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
As a result of the hit, a fire broke out in the paper shop at the enterprise, and the fire covered an area of about 500 square meters, and there was also a partial collapse of the roof. At the time of the strike, 50 people were at work at the enterprise. The company served one of the largest publishing houses in Ukraine.
As a result of the Russian missile attack, seven people were killed, and another 21 people were injured.
“Faktor-druk” is a printing house that is part of the “Faktor” group of companies. The group of companies includes Vivat publishing house, Vivat bookstores and other enterprises.
“This is one of the largest full-cycle printing complexes in Europe, so not only books from the Vivat publishing house are printed there, but also from almost all Ukrainian publishing houses. Now open your books on the last pages — and see how many of them have been printed in Factor Printing. We promise, you will be surprised how many of them there are”, — the publishing house noted.
The “Family Leisure Club” publishing house also confirmed that it prints many of its books in “Faktor-druk”, because “it is one of the three largest printing houses in Ukraine”.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the missile attack on Kharkiv.
“One of Russia’s targets today is a publishing complex, one of the largest in Ukraine. Rocket strike. People died, some were injured, a warehouse with books and equipment burned down. Many Ukrainian publishing houses were published there. And this is a goal for Russian terrorists. They want to burn and destroy all spheres of life!”, — said Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The British ambassador to Ukraine, Martin Harris, also reacted to the attack on the printing house.
“Today, Russian missiles hit the Faktor printing house in Kharkiv, where the books of the Vivat publishing house were printed. Ukrainians are buying books in response, and so am I. Vivat, Vivat!”, — he wrote on the social network X.
On May 25, the Vivat publishing house published the names of seven people who died under fire at a printing plant in Kharkiv.
The Russians are purposefully attacking Ukrainian printing houses and printing houses. And this is not the first such shelling. As a result of a Russian attack on an industrial zone on March 20, the “Gurov and K” printing house burned down in Kharkiv. The printing house “Aurora”, which was located in the same building one floor below, was also completely destroyed.
Even earlier, “House of Printing” was also damaged by Russian shelling in Kharkiv.
