You're reading: Ukrainian regulator bans import of 13 more books from Russia

Ukraine’s State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting has banned the import of another 13 books from Russia as they contain signs of propaganda.

The ban was made on the basis of findings of the committee’s expert council following the analysis and evaluation of the books, the committee’s press service said. The council deemed the materials as those which should not be allowed to be distributed in Ukraine.

The ban applies to importing books from LLC Dress Show, LLC Ethnictrade, LLC Yakaboo Trade, LLC Fors Ukraine, LLC Pero, and LLC Publishing House Machaon-Ukraine.

No permission was granted for the importation of a number of children’s books, in the design of which the communist symbols or symbols of the aggressor state were used, in particular, an English textbook for schoolchildren from the Russian publishing house R-Plus was painted with flags of the Russian military units.

Also, Nikita Nepryakhin’s book “Convince and Win. Secrets of Effective Persuasion,” which exemplifies “effective” arguments from Lenin and Stalin – a direct propaganda of the communist ideology banned in Ukraine – will not be allowed to enter Ukraine’s market.

“The experts also drew attention to the fact that not for the first time Russian publishers, publishing books by authors who have nothing in common with the ideas of the Russian world, in the prefaces to them propagandize the imperial ideology and its apologists,” the committee said.

So, for example, the book of works by Sergei Dovlatov (Azbooka Atticus Publishing House) contains a preface, which propagandizes the “famous Ukrainophobe” Sergey Bezrukov, a Russian screen and stage actor, who has been listed by Ukraine’s Culture Ministry as a person who poses a threat to national security.

The committee said that in 2018 there were 97 refusals to issue permits to import 477,000 copies of books with anti-Ukrainian content, and 27 administrative and economic protocols were issued on the distribution of printed output. Penalties were levied in the amount of Hr 1 million.