Our Get Ukraine Reading appeal is off to a flying start The Times Izzy Lyons Our Get Ukraine Reading appeal is off to a flying start The Sunday Times and Book Aid International are asking for donations to replace books destroyed by Russian airstrikes new A staff member at Chernihiv Regional Library for Youth browses titles donated by Book Aid International. The library, damaged in an airstrike, is forced to rotate what goes on display as the building is repaired Stas Kozliuk Izzy Lyons Saturday October 17 2026, 10.00pm BST , The Sunday Times Listen 0:00 / · 4:43 min Share Share this article Email Twitter Facebook Link Save Last weekend, The Sunday Times told the story of how Russian drones deliberately targeted a warehouse and a printing press in Ukraine this summer, destroying around 13 million books. We asked readers to donate to a charity that sends books to Ukraine to replace damaged or destroyed libraries in what we called our Get Ukraine Reading appeal. Your response was extraordinary. You've helped Get Britain Reading — now Ukraine needs us too In just one week, 1,182 readers donated a total of ￡54,091 to Book Aid International. The average given was ￡46, the largest single donation was ￡2,500. As a result, the charity will be able to send 25,000 books to a new warehouse in Kyiv early next year. Top stories 1 US inflation hotter than expected as Iran war stokes fuel costs Economics Alison Tweed, the chief executive of the charity, said: “The response has been absolutely amazing.[Books] are repositories of people's history and ideas, everything that people hold dear. I think people find it very shocking when they are destroyed. Advertisement “It just shows the power that books have. You can destroy them, but you can't destroy what's in them. Those books can, and will, be replaced.” Top stories 1 Will Lyons: my vintage wine tour of South Australia Inspiration The charity supplies a total of a million books a year to libraries and schools in 25 countries, typically in Africa, where access to reading is limited. It only started donating books to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2022. Most commented 1 Starlink deliberately slowed in Ukraine, says Zelensky Russia-Ukraine war 1,130 comments 2 Katie Zacharia departs as Trump's press secretary after less than a week US politics 699 comments 3 Hundreds of British troops to rehearse Ukraine mission Politics 319 comments 4 Scotland plane crash: boy, 16, and flight instructor, 80, killed Scotland 53 comments 5 All Blacks leave Australia chasing shadows in dazzling first half Rugby union 31 comments Over the last four years Book Aid International, which counts the Queen among its patrons, has supplied 86,000 books to Ukraine. It largely sends children's books, adult fiction and study books for students whose education has been impacted by the conflict and are not able to go to school. Book Aid International sends out a million volumes a year from its Swindon warehouse RUTH TOWELL Over the last 18 months, Russia has increasingly targeted cultural institutions across Ukraine , including printing presses, libraries, and book warehouses. Almost 230 libraries have been destroyed since the start of the invasion, according to Ukraine's culture ministry, while another 680 have been damaged. “The destruction of cultural heritage is very shocking,” Tweed said. “The deliberate destruction of books throughout history has always generated a very strong response among people. People don't like to see books being destroyed or wasted, which is partly why our charity exists.” Advertisement It was founded in 1954 by Hermione Knox, Countess of Ranfurly, the wife of Daniel Knox, 6th Earl of Ranfurly and the governor of the Bahamas. Lady Ranfurly asked her friends in the UK to send unwanted second-hand books to the islands, which she placed in libraries and schools. The charity was originally called the Ranfurly Library Service but became Book Aid International in 1994. It began sourcing books directly from publishing houses, which donate excess stock each year, and now works with around 50 leading publishers in the UK, including Bloomsbury, Penguin and Harper Collins. The books are almost exclusively in English. Once donated, the books are shipped by sea, or, in Ukraine's case, by lorry across Europe. The journey to Kyiv from the charity's warehouse in Swindon takes ten days and one large container has space for around 25,000 books. As it costs ￡2 to select, pack and ship one book, the next delivery in early 2027 will be paid for entirely by Sunday Times readers. “With the donation from The Sunday Times, we will have donated over 100,000 books to Ukraine,” Tweed said. “I'm always amazed at how generous people are. It always feels like a partnership — we are connecting the people who care about books in Ukraine with the people who can make it happen.” A burnt-out book warehouse in Ukraine book aid The charity's most dependent countries are Uganda, Zimbabwe and Ghana, which received between 80,000 and 125,000 books each last year. The charity restocked the library at the University of Mosul in Iraq with 51,000 volumes following its destruction by Islamic State, and a shipment of books recently arrived in Sudan for the first time in decades. Advertisement “Books in most of the places we work are just a luxury that people can't afford,” Tweed said. “They give that connection to normality and allow education to carry on, allow people to reconnect with things that are important, give people a bit of an escape. Although they can't feed and clothe people, they are hugely important.” For just ￡2, you can send a book to Ukraine by donating to Book Aid International, which helps to replace damaged or destroyed library collections in the country: www.bookaid.org/ukrainereading UK Get Britain Reading Charity Ukraine Share Share this article Email Twitter Facebook Link Save