On the night of July 19, Russian aviation struck Ukrainian publishing infrastructure. As a result of the attack, the Convit Group printing house and several other publishing houses were damaged. Victoria Gaidai, the commercial director of the enterprise, stated on the National Telethon that the company is expecting government assistance to restore production capacity that was damaged or destroyed during the shelling.
Scale of destruction and loss of equipment
According to Victoria Gaidai, the situation with equipment is critical: some printing presses are partially damaged, but there are machines that, unfortunately, cannot be restored. The company representative emphasized that the exact extent of the damage is currently unknown, although some binding equipment has already been restored. A full assessment of the remaining production capacity will take several more days.
The key factor determining the timeline for a full return to operations will be the speed of state support. Gaidai noted that the enterprise needs assistance from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education and Science. "What we need most is the restoration of production facilities and printing presses," she added, pointing to the risk of delays without timely government intervention.
School textbooks: threat of missing deadlines
The fate of educational literature is of particular concern. As a result of the attack, editions of textbooks for the Ukrainian language and literature, as well as for law for the 9th grade and English for the 4th grade, were destroyed. Since these publications must be printed again, they will not reach schools by the traditional start of the school year on September 1. The Convit Group plans to request an extension for the delivery of textbooks to educational institutions.
Total damage to the industry
The attack on July 19 struck not only the Convit Group printing house. On the night of July 19, the warehouse of the "Knygolav" publishing house was destroyed, where 250,000 books were stored. The MISON publishing house and the office of the "Ark.Uey" publishing house in Kyiv were also destroyed. At the Convit Group printing house, almost 250,000 finished textbooks and 350,000 blanks for publishing products were destroyed.
Minister of Education and Science Andriy Butenko confirmed the scale of the tragedy: according to preliminary estimates, more than 410,000 school textbooks were destroyed. Of these, more than 260,000 were printed books for the 9th grade, and another approximately 150,000 copies for the 4th grade were in the production stage. All these editions will have to be reproduced from scratch.
Financial consequences
Alexandra Koval, head of the Ukrainian Institute of the Book (UIB), assessed the industry's financial needs following a series of shelling incidents. She stated the need to allocate 150–200 million hryvnias to restore the lost million books. This decision will be critical for ensuring schools and libraries have the necessary content in the conditions of the ongoing war.
