At the Factor-Druk facility in Kharkiv, a first responder from the region’s Ukraine State Emergency Service works to put out flames after the lethal May 23 Russian missile attack that hit the plant. Image: Ukraine State Emergency Service, Kharkiv Region
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also: Russian Attack Hits Ukraine’s Factor-Druk Printing House
Kraus Vom Cleff: ‘These Heinous and Inhumane Attacks Must Stop’
As news has spread about Thursday’s (May 23) Russian missile attack that hit Kharkiv’s Factor-Druk printing facility in northeastern Ukraine, we’re beginning to hear from leading international book publishing industry organizations, all outraged by the atrocity in which at least one S-300 missile is said to have made a direct hit on the premises, with two others landing nearby.
Today (May 24), Reuters’ lead report on the events in Kharkiv has the Ukrainian president traveling to Kharkiv to survey “the site of a major printing house a day after it was destroyed in a Russian missile attack that killed at least seven people. … ‘The entire city and region of Kharkiv deserve our support, gratitude, and respect,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Francis Farrell’s report in the Kyiv Independent has several details of the wreckage at the Factor-Druk plant, said to have had as many as 50 of its 400 employees on-site at the time of the assault.
“One of the civilians killed was placed on an ambulance stretcher, his body still intact,” Farrell writes. “The others, discovered by the firefighters one at a time as they made their way through the smoking ruins, were burned beyond recognition.”
Peter Kraus vom Cleff
Following the publication of our story on Thursday, Peter Kraus vom Cleff, managing director of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Germany’s publishers and booksellers association, has issued a statement, saying, “The attack on the Factor printing plant strikes at the heart of the Ukrainian book industry.
“We’re shocked and appalled. Our thoughts and sympathy are especially with the injured and the families of the victims.
“
According to United Nations figures, more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have already lost their lives since Russia began its attack on Ukraine in violation of international law. …
“These heinous and inhumane acts must stop. We continue to support our Ukrainian colleagues.”
Ricardo Franco Levi, president of Federation of European Publishers, leads the response from Brussels, the federation’s message provided to the news media reading:
“The Federation of European Publishers stands in solidarity with Ukrainian colleagues. [We] send sincerest condolences to the families who have lost a loved one and courage to those wounded by the attacks.
“European publishers join the entire book community in Ukraine in their grief.”
Ricardo Franco Levi
Levi says: “The bombs that killed seven people and destroyed thousands and thousands of books have only one objective, to destroy humanity. The European book community stands with Ukraine.
“We need to pursue and increase cooperation with our Ukrainian colleagues,” he says.
Faktor-Druk belongs to the same holding company as the publisher Vivat Publishing, the federation’s overall statement says.
“We encourage everyone to buy Ukrainian books to distribute to displaced people in various European countries and to ensure the necessary visibility of this vibrant literature. The federation is active with the project Tales of EUkraine, supported by Creative Europe.”
“The Federation of European Publishers stands in solidarity with Ukrainian colleagues. [We] send sincerest condolences to the families who have lost a loved one and courage to those wounded by the attacks.The federation’s involvement in the Tales of EUkraine project is something Publishing Perspectives readers learned about in February 2023.
Vivat Publishing CEO Julia Orlova has set up a fundraising appeal “to support the victims” of the Factor-Druk crisis “and to restore life to printing.”
‘The Unconscionable Delay’
The Factor-Druk facility at Kharkiv, in an image from the printing house’s site
Many in the international book business have exchanged messages in social media to say how grim they find this new symbol of the vulnerability of Ukraine’s publishing workforce and its infrastructure. While the loss of life and the injuries are, of course, paramount, it’s been noted at several times in the press that Factor-Druk is such a dominant publishing house that a number of publishers planning to exhibit books at the Book Arsenal Festival—opening on May 30—still were waiting for their print runs at the time of Thursday’s attack.
And among international allies working to support the Ukrainian resistance, the Kharkiv strike appears to have deepened two key discussions.
One has to do with the months-long delay in aid authorization in the United States’ House of Representatives. Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, has told Jim Acosta on CNN today, “It’s horrifying, in that we’re seeing the effects now of the six-month, unconscionable delay that the Congress took in providing the weapons that Ukraine needs to win this war. Weapons can’t magically appear on the Ukrainian battlefield overnight. So while I’m delighted that Speaker Mike Johnson finally did the right thing and we got the US$60 billion in aid, we’re in that period now when an awful lot of aid is [still] on its way. That doesn’t do anything for Ukrainians on the frontline.”
Himes also has referred to the second main debate, saying, “I’ve been part of a group members of Congress urging the White House to lift some of the strictures that exist on the use of American weapons.”
There’s more on this controversy at The New York Times, at which David Sanger has written this week, “Since the first American shipments of sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, president Biden has never wavered on one prohibition: president Volodymyr Zelensky had to agree to never fire them into Russian territory, insisting that would violate Mr. Biden’s mandate to ‘avoid World War III.’ But the consensus around that policy is fraying. Propelled by the State Department, there is now a vigorous debate inside the administration over relaxing the ban to allow the Ukrainians to hit missile and artillery launch sites just over the border in Russia.”
Kharkiv’s proximity to the Russian border (some 20 kilometers) and the rising heat of these debates will likely to keep Ukraine’s second city at the center of these concerns, and with it the mounting concern for the book publishing industry, key assets of which, like Factor-Druk, have been positioned there.
Printed products are seen stacked behind one of the first responders from the region’s Ukraine State Emergency Service at the Factor-Druk printing facility. The strike killed at least seven people working at the press, authorities say, and injured at least 20. Image: Ukraine State Emergency Service, Kharkiv Region
Our coverage of Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and its impact on the country’s publishing industry is here. More from Publishing Perspectives on the Ukrainian market is here, more on the freedom to publish and the freedom of expression is here, our coverage of Kyiv’s International Book Arsenal Festival is here, more on publishing in Europe is here, and more on book fairs and trade shows in the world publishing industry is here.