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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Luke Harding in Kharkiv

‘They burned books, like the Nazis did 80 years ago’: Russia’s deadly attack on Ukraine’s biggest printing house

Factor Druk printing house, after being destroyed by a Russian missile in May
Ukraine’s Factor Druk printing house, after being destroyed by a Russian missile in May. Photograph: Jędrzej Nowicki/the Guardian

Olena Ninadovska was inside Ukraine’s biggest printing house when the Russian missile hit. She was working in the binding department. It was 10.20am. Two colleagues – Tetaina Khrapina and Olha Kurasova – stood next to her. The women were operating a row of book-sewing machines. Another employee, Sveta Arestova, had just stepped away to take a telephone call.

The S-300 missile came through the roof. There was no warning. It instantly killed Ninadovksa and the others at her workstation. Arestova was injured but survived. The blast flipped over a 10-tonne book-­finishing machine, killing Svitlana Ryzhenko, who was sitting at the end of the assembly line. Two more workers died at an adjacent table. Another, Roman Stroyhi, was killed by shards from a guillotine machine.

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