Russian President Vladimir Putin published the essay 'On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians' in 2021, arguing Ukrainians and Russians are one people.
Ukrainians and Russians are one people, and the legitimacy of an independent Ukrainian state and culture is questionable.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, more than four years before the reported book destruction.
UNESCO added the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex to its register of world heritage sites in danger in September 2023.
A Russian strike on a warehouse in northeastern Kharkiv destroyed 8 million books, including roughly 620,000 school textbooks, according to the publishing house Ranok.
A drone attack damaged the golden domes of the Dormition Cathedral at Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, setting a large section of the roof ablaze, with repairs predicted to cost $11.2 million and take two years.
At celebrations marking 975 years since the founding of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany condemned attacks on cultural property and toured the cathedral with Ukraine's culture minister.
A Russian strike hit Kyiv's Pochaina second-hand book market, wiping out hundreds of individual stalls and countless treasured books, and injuring at least three people in mid-August.
Russia is afraid of Ukrainian books; once the Russian empire banned them and today Russian drones burn warehouses filled with them, the same obsession with different weapons.
Between Thursday and Sunday, Russia fired almost 1,500 drones at Ukraine, around 800 of them jet-powered, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
A Ukrainian missile attack on the Russian border city of Belgorod killed three people, according to acting regional Governor Alexander Shuvayev.
The Russian Defence Ministry said it is preparing 'massive strikes' on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
An overnight Russian strike on the Konvi printing press on the edge of Kyiv destroyed around 1.3 million books intended for the new school year, about 10 percent of all Ukrainian school textbooks.
This is an existential war: Russia wants to destroy and erase us as a nation, as if Ukrainians never existed, which is why it targets our cultural heritage and the symbols of our long presence here, because it wants to ruin everything it cannot appropriate.
Russia is deliberately destroying Ukrainian printing presses and publishing warehouses in an attempt to erase Ukraine as a nation, but it will not succeed.
The enemy is trying to burn out our education and culture by destroying our books and publishing facilities.
UNESCO firmly condemns all attacks against cultural property protected under international law.
I am deeply saddened to see the significant damage to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra cultural heritage site.
We have not deliberately targeted civilian objects during the full-scale invasion, despite repeated missile and drone attacks on residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.
At this stage, we face the risk of the collapse of the entire Ukrainian book ecosystem because of the destruction of publishing facilities and warehouses.
Ukraine is struggling to counter the fast-flying jet-propelled drones that Russia is increasingly deploying, and four companies have developed interceptor drones with one having the most successful technology.
Books save us, and losing them is like losing our hearts.
The Ukrainian government is responsible for damage to its own cultural heritage, since monuments have been dismantled and streets renamed, and Ukraine uses cultural and historical sites to conceal military facilities.
Russia's Defence Ministry said Ukraine launched 239 drones overnight over 14 Russian regions, occupied Crimea and the waters of the Black Sea, which Russia shot down.
Russian forces launched a massive overnight drone attack on Ukraine's northern Chernihiv region, damaging an energy facility, according to regional military administration head Viacheslav Chaus.
Ukraine's military said it attacked communications equipment in Russia's Belgorod region, a drone-control site in Huliaipole, logistics depots in Crimea, Luhansk and Kursk, and a Russian radar site and S-400 command vehicle in Bryansk.
Gloria Steinem dies, political tensions rise in Europe.
Gloria Steinem, a leading feminist icon, passed away at 92, leaving a profound legacy. In Europe, Norway seized a Russian vessel amid escalating tensions with Ukraine. Meanwhile, Finland conducted its largest civil defense exercise since WWII, preparing for potential threats.
Choose the stories that matter to you—and how you want to see them.
