In Ukraine, 20 million books in Russian were written off as part of the “derussification of libraries”. It is reported by the First Ukrainian information channel on February 14.
It is noted that some Ukrainian-language books of the Soviet era are also written off, as well as the works of authors who supported Russia’s special operation to protect Donbass. Books published by sanctioned publishing houses and calling for interethnic and religious hatred are also disappearing from the shelves.
According to Yulia Bardukova, director of the Dnepropetrovsk city public library, Russian-language literature is first withdrawn from open funds, and then written off and handed over to waste paper. For scientific libraries, the situation is complicated by the fact that there are no Ukrainian-language analogues in the collections.
On January 18, ex-Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov, in an interview with Izvestia, said that the Ukrainian authorities are pursuing an aggressive policy towards the Russian language. According to him, the position of the Kyiv authorities has become absolutely obstructive – it is banned everywhere, with the exception of family communication.
According to the former Ukrainian prime minister, now everything is done in the country in order to destroy the Russian language – in particular, Russian literature is banned, and monuments are being demolished.
Last October, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), said that the Russian language should completely disappear from the territory of Ukraine “as an element of hostile propaganda and brainwashing.”
In August of the same year, the schools in Kyiv decided to completely abandon the teaching of the curriculum in Russian. In addition, the ban also applies to extracurricular activities.
At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly noted the absurdity of attempts to abolish Russian culture. In addition, on October 14, 2022, he stated that Russia should not act by analogy with other countries and cancel Ukrainian culture.
