MOSCOW: A vast state library in Moscow has so far taken 18,000 “Russophobic” books from Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine and placed them in a special repository, its director said on Thursday.

Vadim Duda, head of the Russian State Library, said the books had been removed from libraries in areas captured by Russia in the eastern Donbas region and other parts of Ukraine, and were being stored for “scholarly and research purposes”.

Ukraine accuses Russia of trying to eradicate its culture and identity in the war that began in the Donbas in 2014 and exploded into Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two after Moscow staged a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

One factor underlying the conflict is a fundamental clash over the entire history of the two countries, from their earliest origins through to World War Two and beyond. Kyiv emphatically rejects Moscow’s contention — set out by President Vladimir Putin in the run-up to the invasion — that Russians and Ukrainians are one people and that Ukraine has no separate historical identity.

Duda, posting on Telegram, said the books placed in the special archive contained “overtly nationalist and Russophobic ideas that grossly distort our shared history”. He said the collection had been started in 2024 on orders from the Russian culture ministry.

“This is not an act of destruction, but an act of preservation... for future researchers and historians, enabling them to study not only the facts but also the ways in which dangerous ideological narratives were created and disseminated,” he said.

“It involves dealing with a ‘difficult heritage’ so that it does not poison the minds of our citizens today, and to ensure that such history does not repeat itself in the future,” he said. Ukraine says it is Moscow that is trying to indoctrinate people, including children, as part of a strategy of Russification in areas it has captured.

Published in Dawn, June 26 , 2026