The “Ranok” publishing house explained how long the recovery will take and what steps they will take in the near future
20 August 12:00
Viktor Kruglov, CEO of the “Ranok” publishing house, said that it will take at least 3–5 years for the company to fully recover from the Russian shelling, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
“The ‘Ranok’ publishing house team’s crisis response plan. The day after the major fire, we convened a crisis response team… According to our estimates, full recovery will take at least 3–5 years. Everyone is alive, and the whole team is together,” Kruglov wrote.
He explained that the files and book layouts have been saved in the cloud thanks to backups. Kruglov stated that the first priority is to provide schoolchildren with textbooks, and that deliveries to schools from backup warehouses are continuing uninterrupted.
“There’s a problem with the burned-out print runs; some titles need to be completely reprinted. As of today, seven printing houses have agreed to urgently reprint 620,000 textbooks. We are willing to accept any conditions in order to make up for the losses by September,” he added.
At the same time, the CEO noted that funding, paper imports, and legal issues remain pressing concerns, as military risks do not currently constitute force majeure.
“We’re optimizing expenses. We’ve agreed with the team on temporary salary cuts and have written letters to landlords requesting discounts on warehouse rent. Almost everyone has supported this. We’ve drawn up a sequestered budget. We made cuts again. Then again, to balance the expenses. We’re negotiating with banks about loans. So far, without success. Future books and intellectual property rights are of no interest to banks as collateral. This is a huge problem that needs to be brought to the government level,” he wrote.
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In addition, he believes that there are no safe places in Ukraine, so the company must further diversify its book delivery and storage routes, which is very expensive.
“We’re reaching out to partners and suppliers. We’re talking to authors and literary agencies, asking for deferrals on payments and royalties. We’re explaining the situation. Everyone is being understanding,” he added.
As a reminder, on August 1, 2026, as a result of Russian shelling of Kharkiv, the warehouses of the “Ranok” publishing house were damaged; these warehouses served as storage facilities for products from the “KnygoLand,” “FabulaKnigomania,” READBERRY, Korali Books, and the “Ranok” publishing house itself. It was noted that textbooks were destroyed in the fire.
As previously reported, in 2022, Russian shelling damaged the “Ranok” publishing house’s logistics center in Kharkiv. At that time, part of the book inventory was destroyed, resulting in losses amounting to tens of millions of hryvnias.
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