fact check
Ukraine bans «propaganda», not Russian literature
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. According to a decision made in early May, Russian-language “propaganda literature” is to be removed from Ukrainian libraries. Photo: -/Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
A rumor is making the rounds on the Internet: All Russian-language books are said to be burned in Ukraine. But that’s not true.
When you hear about book burnings in Germany, you usually associate it with the National Socialists. Ukraine is currently being accused of taking action against all Russian literature in this way. But that is unfounded.
Allegation: The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj ordered the burning of “all Russian-language books”.
Rating: Wrong. Kyiv, however, has “Russian propaganda literature” removed from the libraries.
Those are the facts
After the start of the Russian attack on the country, Ukraine implemented two plans for dealing with certain books: On June 19, the parliament decided that printed matter from Russia and Belarus could no longer be imported into Ukraine. As early as May 5, the Ministry of Culture announced that Russian-language «propaganda literature» was to be removed from the libraries. This includes texts that deny the Russian war against Ukraine or question the country’s territorial integrity.
But it is not about all Russian-language literature. What will happen to the removed texts is unclear. Burning is not mentioned anywhere. There is no evidence of any alleged official order to destroy all Russian-language books in Ukraine.
In some cases, the photo of a pile of books on fire is also distributed with the false claim. But this recording has been available online since 2014 at the latest – and certainly does not show a book burning in 2022. In addition, one of the books shown says “History of Ukraine” in Cyrillic letters. This indicates that the burning at the time was actually more to deny Ukraine’s statehood.