Anger and solidarity after attack on Ukrainian company Factor

“The European book community stands by Ukraine,” declared the Association of European Publishers after the deadly attack on Factor-Druk.

At the Factor-Druk factory in Kharkiv, a first responder from the Ukrainian State Emergency Service extinguishes the flames after the deadly Russian missile attack on May 23 that hit the factory. Photo: Ukrainian State Emergency Service, Kharkiv region

By Porter Anderson, Editor in Chief | @Porter_Anderson

See also: Russian attack hits Ukrainian printing company Factor-Druk

Kraus vom Cleff: “These disgusting and inhumane attacks must stop”

AAs news of Thursday’s (May 23) Russian missile attack on the Factor-Druk printing plant in Kharkiv, north-eastern Ukraine, spreads, we are now hearing from leading international book publishing associations that they are all outraged by the atrocity, in which at least one S-300 missile is said to have scored a direct hit on the site, while two others struck nearby.

Today (May 24), Reuters reports in its editorial on the events in Kharkiv that the Ukrainian president travelled to Kharkiv to “inspect the premises of a large printing factory, a day after it was destroyed in a Russian missile attack that killed at least seven people. … ‘The entire city and region of Kharkiv deserves our support, gratitude and respect,'” Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Francis Farrell’s report in Kyiv Independent has several details about the wreckage at the Factor Druk plant. At the time of the attack, up to 50 of the 400 employees were said to have been on site.

“One of the civilians killed was placed on a stretcher, his body still intact,” Farrell writes. “The others were discovered one by one by firefighters as they made their way through the smoking ruins. They were burned beyond recognition.”

Peter Kraus from Cleff

Following the publication of our article on Thursday, Peter Kraus vom Cleff, General Manager of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, issued a statement in which he said: “The attack on the Factor printing house strikes at the heart of the Ukrainian book industry.

“We are shocked and stunned. Our thoughts and sympathy go out especially to the injured and the families of the victims.”

“According to the United Nations, more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since Russia began its illegal attack on Ukraine. …

“These heinous and inhumane acts must stop. We continue to support our Ukrainian colleagues.”

Ricardo Franco Levi, President of the Federation of European Publishers, is leading the response from Brussels. The association’s message to the news media states:

“The Association of European Publishers stands in solidarity with our Ukrainian colleagues. (We) express our sincere condolences to the families who have lost a loved one and wish courage to those injured in the attacks.

“European publishers share the grief of the entire book community in Ukraine.”

Ricardo Franco Levi

Levi says: “The bombs that killed seven people and destroyed thousands and thousands of books have only one goal: to destroy humanity. The European book community stands by Ukraine.

“We must continue and expand cooperation with our Ukrainian colleagues,” he says.

Faktor-Druk belongs to the same holding company as the publisher Vivat Publishing, according to the association’s overall statement.

“We encourage everyone to buy Ukrainian books to distribute them to displaced people in different European countries and to ensure the necessary visibility of this living literature. The association is actively involved in the project Stories from the EUkrainesupported by Creative Europe.”

The association’s participation in the Tales of EUkraine project is something Publish perspectives Readers learned about it in February 2023.

Julia Orlova, Managing Director of Vivat Publishing, has launched a fundraising appeal “to support the victims” of the Factor Printing crisis “and to give new impetus to printing”.

“The unreasonable delay”

The Factor-Druk factory in Kharkiv, in a picture from the location of the printing plant

Many representatives of the international book industry have shared messages on social media expressing how distressing they find this new symbol of the vulnerability of Ukraine’s publishing industry and infrastructure. While the focus is of course on the deaths and injuries, it has been pointed out several times in the press that Factor-Druk is such a dominant publisher that a number of publishers planning to exhibit books at the Book Arsenal Festival – which opens on May 30 – were still awaiting their print runs at the time of Thursday’s attack.

Related article: “Russian attack hits Ukrainian printing house Factor-Druk.” Image: State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Kharkiv region

And among international allies supporting the Ukrainian resistance, the attack on Kharkiv appears to have deepened two important discussions.

One of them has to do with the months-long delay in approving aid in the United States House of Representatives. Democratic Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut told Jim Acosta on CNN today: “It is appalling that we are now seeing the effects of the six-month, unacceptable delay that the congress took over the provision of weapons, the Ukraine must win this war. Weapons cannot magically appear on the Ukrainian battlefield overnight. So I am pleased that Speaker Mike Johnson finally did the right thing and got the 60 billion US dollars in aid, we are now in a phase in which a lot of aid is (still) on the way. That does not help the Ukrainians on the front lines.”

Himes also referred to the second main debate, saying: “I was part of a group of members of Congress who White House to remove some of the restrictions on the use of American Weapons.”

For more on this controversy, see The New York Timesabout which David Sanger wrote this week: “Since the first American deliveries of sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, President Biden has never deviated from a ban: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had to agree never to fire those weapons into Russian territory, insisting that doing so would violate Biden’s mandate to ‘avoid World War III.’ But consensus on that policy is crumbling. Driven by the State Department, there is currently a fierce debate within the administration about loosening the ban to allow the Ukrainians to attack missile and artillery launch bases just across the border in Russia.”

Kharkiv’s proximity to the Russian border (around 20 kilometers) and the increasing heat of these debates are likely to keep Ukraine’s second-largest city at the center of these concerns – and with it the growing concern about the book publishing industry, whose key assets such as Factor-Druk are based there.

Printed materials are stacked behind one of the first responders of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service at the Factor-Druk printing house. According to the authorities, at least seven employees of the printing house were killed and at least 20 injured in the attack. Photo: Ukrainian State Emergency Service, Kharkiv region

Our coverage of Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and its impact on the country’s publishing industry can be found here. For more information from Publishing Perspectives on the Ukrainian market, click here for more on freedom of publication and freedom of expression, click here for our coverage of the International Book Arsenal Festival in Kyiv, click here for more on publishing in Europe, and click here for more on book fairs and trade exhibitions in the global publishing industry.