On May 23, 2024, Russian forces carried out ten strikes on Kharkiv. Powerful explosions rocked the city. Today, the enemy targeted a printing house and transport infrastructure. According to preliminary data, the city was attacked with S‑300 missiles. Hits were recorded in the Kholodnohirskyi and Osnovianskyi districts.
In the Osnovianskyi district, Russian missiles struck the premises of the Faktor‑Druk printing house, where the majority of Ukrainian publishers printed their books. Writers, bookstores, and publishing houses are expressing condolences and support for their colleagues on social media.
As a result of the attack, a large‑scale fire broke out at the printing house; the paper workshop was also engulfed in flames. Seven people were killed, and another sixteen were injured. All the victims were employees of the enterprise who had come to work that morning. Rescuers are finding the bodies of the deceased among the books. At the moment of the enemy strike, around fifty people were working there.
“Russia struck the city and the region with 15 missiles. All the injured are employees of the printing house,” said the Head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration
He added that all emergency services are working at the scene and that people are receiving the necessary assistance.
A member of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers, documentary photographer Oleksandr Mahula, arrived at the site of the attack among the first, as the strike occurred not far from his home.
“The printing house was completely destroyed, books were burning,” the photographer says. “The women who died there were people who had simply come to work in the morning — it was supposed to be an ordinary day for them. They were printing books. The moment when rescuers pull bodies out from under the rubble — or rather, what is left of them — is always deeply shocking and probably will never cease to be.”
After the morning “missile rain,” air‑raid sirens sounded several more times in the city. Medics and firefighters immediately ran to shelters.
“There, I met several firefighters I know, with whom I have worked more than once at strike sites. We were lucky that the enemy did not hit the same place a second time, as it has done many times before,” says Oleksandr Mahula.
Observing the tragedy at the destroyed printing house, Oleksandr admits that he could not stop thinking about Patriot air defense systems, which are critically needed by his native city.
Likewise, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his address, once again called on partners to help protect Kharkiv from the air.
“Russian terrorists take advantage of the fact that Ukraine still lacks sufficient air defense protection and a reliable ability to destroy terrorist launch systems exactly where they are located — near our borders. And this is a weakness — not our weakness, but that of the world, which for the third year in a row has failed to treat terrorists the way they deserve,” Zelenskyy said.
We remind that yesterday, May 22, Russians once again struck residential districts of the city — Shevchenkivskyi and Kholodnohirskyi — from the territory of Russia’s Belgorod region. Damaged high‑rise buildings, smashed trams and trolleybuses, burned‑out cars, injured and terrified people — these were the consequences of the shelling of Kharkiv by Russian forces using UMPB D‑30 munitions. The ruins and blood after the strike were documented by photographers Georhiy Ivanchenko and the Liberovs — Vlada and Konstantin.
Worked on the material:
Domain researcher, text author: Vira Labych
Photo editor: Viacheslav Ratynskyi
Literary editor: Yuliia Futei
