More than 11 million books, including new print runs of Russia's Constitution, were destroyed in Ukrainian attacks on Wildberries warehouses, according to calculations by the Russian Book Union, the Association of Book Publishers of Russia and the Association of Book Distributors, as reported by the Vedomosti newspaper. The losses were concentrated mainly in fiction, children's literature and popular science titles.
The Eksmo-AST publishing group said the destroyed print runs included Nadezhda Zhukova's "Bukvar" (ABC book), a new edition of the Russian Constitution, road atlases, as well as books by Margarita Simonyan, including her novel "In the Beginning Was the Word — in the End Will Be the Digit," and works by Zakhar Prilepin. Study guides for the OGE and EGE state exams for the next school year were hit "in huge quantities," the group said, adding that it had already launched additional print runs.
Ukraine began striking Wildberries' largest warehouses in mid-July and has continued the attacks since. The combined damage to the marketplace and its sellers could reach 600–800 billion rubles, according to Forbes.
Russian book publishers, including Eksmo, have suspended sales of their products on Wildberries, Kommersant reported. The company itself said it "does not record" publishers leaving the platform. According to industry associations, Wildberries accounts for 30% of Russia's book market in monetary terms, and the attacks have become an "unprecedented blow" for the industry.