Damaged printing houses and publishing houses can receive grants of up to UAH 16 million for equipment restoration and up to UAH 30 million in compensation for damaged property, Vice Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy - Minister of Culture Tetiana Berezhna reported.
"Russia is destroying Ukrainian books - in July alone, Russian attacks destroyed more than 1.5 million copies. As a result of Russian shelling, significant destruction was suffered by the Convi Plus printing house, Knigolav and Mison.publishing publishing houses," Berezhna wrote on Facebook.
According to her, the preliminary amount of damage to finished products, raw materials, and publications in production is about UAH 130 million.
"The restoration of printing houses and support for the publishing industry is an issue of cultural resilience and national security," she emphasized.
The Vice Prime Minister said that during a meeting with the Ministry of Economy with the participation of the Ukrainian Publishers Association, available mechanisms of state support were determined: printing houses can receive grants of up to UAH 16 million for the restoration of equipment damaged or destroyed as a result of Russian aggression; the war risk insurance program provides up to UAH 30 million in compensation for damaged property; the Ministry of Economy is consulting affected publishing houses and printing houses regarding possible support.
"Our task is to help enterprises restore production and ensure the release of new Ukrainian books. The state will strengthen the resilience of the book industry and create conditions for its restoration and development," Berezhna added.
As reported, on the night of July 19, as a result of a Russian attack, the warehouse of the Knigolav publishing house was destroyed, and 250,000 books were lost. The MISON publishing house was also destroyed, and the office of the Ark.ua publishing house in Kyiv was damaged. In addition, the printing house of the Convi Group was destroyed, destroying nearly 250,000 textbooks and 350,000 blanks for publishing products.
Later, Minister of Education and Science Andriy Butenko reported that, according to preliminary estimates, more than 410,000 school textbooks were destroyed as a result of the July 19 Russian strike, and they need to be reprinted. In particular, more than 260,000 printed textbooks for the 9th grade were destroyed; textbooks for the 4th grade were also hit - approximately 150,000 copies that the publishing house had in work.
Oleksandra Koval, head of the Ukrainian Book Institute, after another Russian shelling in which publishing houses and printing houses were damaged, announced the need to allocate UAH 150 to 200 million to restore the lost million books.
