More than 11 million books destroyed in Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries warehouses, including school textbooks and copies of Russia’s Constitution
More than 11 million books have burned in Wildberries warehouses hit by Ukrainian attacks, according to calculations by the Russian Book Union, the Association of Russian Book Publishers, and the Association of Book Distributors.
“The burned books are mostly fiction, children’s, and popular science literature,” the industry associations stated.
The press service of the publishing group Eksmo-AST told the Russian business daily Vedomosti that the destroyed stock included print runs of Nadezhda Zhukova’s Bukvar “ABC Primer” and a new edition of Russia’s Constitution, along with road atlases; books by Margarita Simonyan — including her novel V nachale bylo Slovo — v kontse budet Tsifra “In the Beginning Was the Word — In the End Will Be the Number” — and by Zakhar Prilepin; and copies of Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451.
Exam-prep materials for next year’s State Final Exam (OGE) and Unified State Exam (USE) were also affected “in huge quantities,” Eksmo-AST reported, adding that publishers within the group had begun urgently printing additional runs.
Ukraine has been striking Wildberries’ largest warehouses across Russia since mid-July, causing damage to the marketplace and its sellers that is already estimated at hundreds of billions of rubles. Russian book publishers have suspended sales on Wildberries, according to sources cited by the Russian business daily Kommersant, though the company itself stated it “has not recorded” any publishers leaving.
Russia has struck warehouses in Ukraine as well. Ukrainian publishers say Russian attacks have destroyed more than 10 million books in recent months — including about eight million copies that burned at a Kharkiv children’s literature publisher after an August 1 strike.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.