---
title: "Blow to culture: Russian drones destroyed millions of books at the 'Ranok' and 'Knygoland' warehouse"
description: "Russian drones struck the 'Ranok' publishing house warehouse in Kyiv. 8 million books, including textbooks and products of the 'Knygoland' chain, perished in the fire. The damage is estimated at 1 billion hryvnias, and the store chain has temporarily stopped accepting orders. 🔥📚"
date: 2026-08-01T17:16:00.000Z
lang: en
url: https://xab.info/en/posts/blow-to-book-warehouse-ranok-millions-of-books-burned
tags: [ukraine, russian-attack, ranok, bookland, victor-kruglov]
publisher: "XAB.info"
---

# Blow to culture: Russian drones destroyed millions of books at the 'Ranok' and 'Knygoland' warehouse

![Firefighters extinguish a large fire at the 'Ranok' and 'Kniholen' book warehouse after a Russian drone attack that destroyed millions of copies](https://xab.info/media/2026/08/01/udar-po-knizhnomu-skladu-ranok-ognem-sozhgleni-millions-knig/udar-po-knizhnomu-skladu-ranok-ognem-sozhgleni-millions-knig-1.webp)

As a result of a Russian attack on the territory of the publishing corporation 'Ranok' in Kyiv, a massive fire broke out, engulfing one of the largest book warehouses in the country. Millions of book copies, including educational literature and publications from dozens of Ukrainian publishers, were caught in the flames.

According to Viktor Kruglov, the founder of the RNK-Ranok corporation, two drones struck the warehouse, hitting the same spot. The entrepreneur is convinced that this was not an accident but a planned operation aimed at destroying Ukrainian book products and textbooks.

### Scale of losses: billions of hryvnias and millions of books

The preliminary damage assessment announced by Viktor Kruglov reaches 1 billion hryvnias. The fire destroyed colossal volumes of literature:

    - 8 million copies of books;

    - 600,000 textbooks;

    - 28,000 unique titles.

The burnt facility was key to the Ukrainian book market. It served not only as a storage facility for the products of the 'Ranok' group of publishers ('Ranok', 'Fabula', READBERRY, Korali books) but also as a distribution center for the 'Knygoland' bookstore chain. There were tens of thousands of book titles from all Ukrainian publishers stored there.

### Consequences for the bookstore chain

Igor Zarudko, the director of the 'Knygoland' chain, confirmed that the strike hit the warehouses of both structures directly, and all stocks were engulfed by fire. Consequently, the chain has temporarily suspended order acceptance on its website as the logistics chain was disrupted.

At the time of the strike, employees were present at the warehouse. Kruglov reported that contact was lost with one of the female workers for a while, but later she responded and remained alive. There is currently no exact information about other casualties.

### Series of strikes against publishers

This incident became part of a series of attacks on the Ukrainian book industry in recent weeks. Earlier, on the night of July 19, the warehouse of the 'Knygolav' publishing house burned down due to shelling, where about 250,000 books were destroyed. Even earlier, on July 2, during a massive attack on Kyiv, the warehouse of the logistics partner of the BookChef publishing house was destroyed, where about 800,000 copies burned.