- 4 weeks ago
What if one of the biggest targets in a war wasn't a military base but a printing press? Millions of books have been destroyed in Ukraine over the last few months. Is Russia deliberately targeting Ukrainian culture?
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00:02What if one of the biggest targets in a war wasn't a military base, but a printing press?
00:08Take a look at these images from the beginning of August.
00:12They show the aftermath of a Russian drone strike on one of Ukraine's largest children's publishers, RANOK, in the north
00:20-eastern city of Kharkiv.
00:21Piles of books turned to ash.
00:24Well, according to local media, Russian strikes have destroyed one third of all books printed in Ukraine this year alone.
00:33Ukrainian publishers say that's more than 10 million books gone in just the last few months.
00:40A Russian attack also destroyed one of Ukraine's largest book markets in the capital, Kyiv, in mid-August.
00:46Ukraine says these attacks are about more than infrastructure and that they're targeting culture, language and national identity itself.
00:55Russia rejects claims that it deliberately attacks civilian and cultural sites.
01:01So why are books becoming part of this war?
01:04And what happens when a conflict reaches beyond the battlefield and into classrooms and libraries?
01:10In a moment, I'll speak to an expert who says Russia's attempt to destroy Ukraine's national identity extends far beyond
01:19military targets.
01:20Well, today was the first day back at school for millions of children across Ukraine.
01:26But here in Kyiv, after a night of Russian missile and drone attacks, teachers, parents and their kids had to
01:33rush from the schoolyard to bomb shelters.
01:36It's now the fifth time Ukrainian children have started a new school year since Russia's full-scale invasion.
01:42A large proportion of textbooks for their learning has been destroyed in recent weeks.
01:49And now publishers, authors and rights groups are raising the alarm over the scale of the destruction and its impact.
01:56Penn Ukraine, a cultural and human rights organisation, has called for international action this week.
02:02Writing that Russia attacks Ukraine every day, killing people and destroying civilian infrastructure.
02:08Ukrainian books are also its targets.
02:11It goes on to say it knows that reading is the foundation of culture and meaning.
02:16Books shape our values, our ways of thinking, our cultural memory, our identity and our sense of community.
02:23They are also a foundation of national education.
02:29Well, to discuss all this, I'm joined from Washington, D.C. by Mercedes Sapupo, fellow with the Eurasia Centre at
02:37the Atlantic Council.
02:39Mercedes, it's great to see you.
02:41Thank you for having me.
02:42Now, we've just seen these images and gotten a bit of an idea of the scale and the number of
02:48books destroyed.
02:50Just first off, do you believe Russia is deliberately targeting Ukrainian education as part of its war strategy?
02:57Yes, we can certainly understand destroying books in Ukraine as a component of Russia's wider strategy to demoralise the Ukrainian
03:05people and to erase Ukraine's national and cultural identity.
03:09Books and knowledge and the stories that they contain pose two very distinct threats to the Kremlin and to this
03:16violent and revanchist Kremlin.
03:17Firstly, they contribute to Ukraine.
03:20Firstly, they contribute to Ukraine's national identity and are a vehicle for learning and for encouraging critical thinking and national,
03:25historical and cultural engagement, particularly among Ukraine's children.
03:29And secondly, Ukraine's both vibrant cultural and national identity poses a threat to a revanchist Kremlin that is seeking to
03:37eliminate the idea of an independent Ukraine and demoralise the population to push for capitulation.
03:43Notably, Ukraine's children are Ukraine's future.
03:46And as the future carriers of Ukraine's identity and Ukraine's prosperity, they have become a target for this revanchist Kremlin's
03:54Russian strategy.
03:55The start of a new school year in Ukraine symbolises Ukraine's resilience and dedication to continue to educate and support
04:01its children despite circumstances of often constant terror and the scarce Kremlin.
04:06Now, Mercedes, some would argue that in any war areas with cultural or educational significance are hit because they're collateral
04:14damage, not necessarily because they're deliberately chosen.
04:18What's the evidence that these strikes are specifically targeted rather than perhaps incidental?
04:25I think the statistics answer this best for us.
04:28Over recent weeks, more than 35 publishing facilities have been hit by Russia during these recent attacks leading up to
04:35the start of the school year.
04:3612 million books have been destroyed.
04:38And overall this year, Russia has destroyed about a third of all books printed in Ukraine, destroying over 10 million
04:44copies in August alone.
04:46A Russian missile just hit a printing press that was in the process of producing 1.3 million books, among
04:51which included 10% of Ukraine's textbooks.
04:54And on that vein, about 9% of new textbooks have been destroyed by Russia in July and August.
04:58So these attacks are not just limited to contemporary production as well.
05:03They also expand to the distribution of knowledge writ large.
05:06As you mentioned earlier, Russia hit and destroyed a secondhand book market in Kyiv in August.
05:11The pattern over the past two months, as demonstrated by these sobering statistics, shows clearly that we're not just talking
05:18about one arbitrary strike, but are instead looking at a Russian strategy of war, especially when considered in conjunction with
05:25Russia's assault on Ukraine's national identity.
05:27That is intended to target contemporary cultural production, Ukraine's cultural heritage and Ukraine's identity as a whole.
05:34I will say I also saw this damage myself when I was in Ukraine last week when visiting churches and
05:40civilian buildings that were damaged and destroyed by Russia's assault.
05:43I will note that we can also expect Russia to continue to ramp up this level of violence as we're
05:48now seeing the sixth straight day in a row of effectively nonstop air raids in Kyiv in particular.
05:53But how does trying to erase national identity and language serve a military objective from Russia's point of view?
06:04It's a demoralization tactic.
06:06So Russia is hoping to demoralize the Ukrainian people by targeting their unifiers and their community and all of these
06:14things that bring Ukraine together.
06:15Over the last four years, Russia has also continually targeted hundreds and hundreds of sites of cultural heritage in Ukraine
06:22that include but are not limited to places of worship, museums, monuments, artistic production spaces and historical sites.
06:29One of these sites includes the key Pachersk Lavra, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that's a significant site
06:35for Eastern Orthodoxy.
06:37This, as well as targeting printing presses and book storage facilities, can be considered as part of a Russian strategy
06:43to erase bedrocks and wielders of Ukraine's cultural heritage and national identity, to demoralize the population and to serve this
06:51Russian talking point of Ukraine as not being its own independent nation, which is part of its war aims, is
06:58to erase Ukraine.
06:59You've just outlined, I guess, what Russia has been destroying, particularly we've been focusing on books.
07:05Can you just explain, though, what is actually being lost here?
07:10Is it content and, I guess, books that can be replaced or is Ukraine losing something more, like its memory,
07:19its institutional memory?
07:23It is both.
07:24Notably, lots of shops in Ukraine that are bookshops have been forced to close down because a lot of what
07:29they were selling is being burned down on a very smaller scale.
07:32But I think kind of looking as well at the books, among the millions that have been destroyed include works
07:38by Ukrainian authors and books translated into Ukrainian and a significant portion of school books.
07:43But they also kind of deprive Ukraine's children of the literature that they need to learn and grow and are
07:49thus depriving Ukraine of the future and the children and people that will comprise its future population and will carry
07:57these traditions moving forward.
07:58And it also deprives Ukraine of unifiers and, you know, books that are printed in Ukraine's national language and books
08:08that comprise Ukrainian history and Ukraine's culture and bring people together at a time of war and in a time
08:13of terror.
08:14And I guess that ties into my next question, because Vladimir Putin has argued that Russians and Ukrainians are one
08:21people.
08:22And, of course, he's questioned Ukraine's legitimacy as a state.
08:25How does that serve as a kind of blueprint for what Russia is doing now to heritage sites and Ukrainian
08:33publishers?
08:35I guess, well, that is one of the Kremlin's falsified narratives that it serves as a as a talking point
08:40that Putin has tried to use to justify his war.
08:43And as you mentioned, it does help us see more clearly Russia's assault on Ukraine's national identity and heritage as
08:49a twisted strategy of war here.
08:52Targeting Ukraine's cultural heritage through these sites that I mentioned before, as well as printing presses and book storage facilities
08:58more recently, churches, places of worship, museums, music halls.
09:04All of these are comprising Ukraine's heritage, constitute together the Kremlin's attempt to act on this talking point that Ukraine
09:15and Russia are one people by trying to erase these many vibrant spaces of culture and history that counter this
09:21falsified narrative in and of themselves by comprising Ukraine's independent identity.
09:26I'd also be remiss not to note here as we're talking about this, we should bring in the Kremlin's deportation
09:32of Ukrainian children as well as part of this tactic as Russia is seeking to demoralize the population, but also
09:38destroy Ukraine's future by endangering and depriving Ukraine of its children, which is one of these main components of what
09:45comprises Ukraine's distinct cultural identity and proves that Ukraine and Russia are by no means one people.
09:50Can you just explain that a bit more?
09:52How does interrupting a child's education in areas like Kyiv compare to the deportation of children from occupied areas and
10:01I guess possibly the re-education that is also happening in those areas?
10:06I think they are kind of hand-in-hand part of Russia's strategy here.
10:11So depriving Ukraine's children of their education, as you mentioned earlier, many of Ukraine's children today had to start their
10:18first day of school in bomb shelters,
10:21deprives them of education and deprives them of being able to serve Ukraine in the future by, you know, being
10:27an educated populace with opportunities.
10:29But this kind of goes hand-in-hand with Russia's deliberate deportation of Ukrainian children and is seeking to erase
10:37Ukraine's national identity by erasing those carriers of its identity in the future.
10:41So both kind of in its assault on Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine and also in the way that
10:47it takes children away from their families, oftentimes forcibly militarizes them, deprives them of the Ukrainian language, forces them to
10:54take on Russian passports.
10:56This all is a tied component of erasing Ukraine's cultural heritage and of demoralizing Ukraine's population and depriving Ukraine of
11:03the future generations that will carry and uphold this heritage moving forwards.
11:07Now, Russia has pushed back and claimed that cultural sites that have been hit have been used to conceal what
11:16it believes to be military facilities.
11:18How do you respond to that claim?
11:21Well, that claim is not true.
11:24Hundreds and hundreds of heritage sites in Ukraine have been targeted.
11:27And as I kind of mentioned before, this includes places of worship.
11:31We can also look very clearly at the key Pachersk Lavra, which is an 1,000-year-old UNESCO World
11:37Heritage Site that serves as a very important beacon of Eastern Orthodoxy, which is also very important for Russian culture.
11:43So it is not containing a military target.
11:47These schools are not containing military targets.
11:50You know, the place, the Mitseski Arsenal across the street from the Lavra is not a military target as well.
11:57These are all places of cultural production.
12:00And just the majority of these or the plurality of these that are hit really counter that point, I think,
12:08as well as the fact that some of these include sites that are important for Russian heritage as well, like
12:14the Lavra.
12:15Now, we've been speaking about Russian attempts to destroy Ukrainian culture and identity.
12:20And this is all happening while Russia itself heavily restricts artistic and literary expression at home.
12:29Is there an irony or a logic in Russia targeting a free Ukrainian culture while suppressing its own?
12:37I think it is a sick logic.
12:40Russia is exporting its authoritarianism and repression through this revanchist program of violence.
12:46It is no surprise to me that the serious repression and censorship within Russia that governs Russia's society is prevalent
12:54in areas of Ukraine that are temporarily occupied by Russia.
12:57So being run by Russia's authorities there and is present in Russia's efforts to squash Ukraine's expression of its identity.
13:04This is, to me, just hand in hand as Russia's tactics, both at home and abroad.
13:08Now, of course, we've been talking about books and the Ukrainian language and Russia's attempts to destroy the publishing of
13:18Ukrainian books.
13:19What does the publishing sector there need right now in order to be able to keep operating?
13:28Well, I think, firstly, Ukraine needs air defence.
13:31They have run out of interceptors and are thus not able to counter ballistic missiles.
13:36So that is very important to bookshops, but also every single part of Ukraine that is being targeted and cannot
13:43be protected anymore by Ukraine's own military because they lack the necessary facilities to do that.
13:50I think any support from the Ukrainian government for their publishing houses will also be welcome.
13:55That would include financial support from other nations as well that are able to pitch in and help Ukraine be
14:01able to weather this time.
14:02And, you know, I think air defence really is the most important thing here and funds to support Ukraine's rebuilding
14:09and resilience as, you know, the Ukrainian people are facing constant barrages of not only drones, but also ballistic missiles
14:16that cannot be hit right now and are just falling.
14:19Thanks a lot for your insights today, Mercedes.
14:22We've been speaking to Mercedes Sapupo, a fellow with the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C.
14:29Thank you so much. I'm Jared Reid in Berlin.
14:32Thanks for watching.