A Russian missile killed seven people and wiped out the country’s main book printer in May. But moves are already afoot to rebuild Factor Druk
Olena Ninadovska was inside Ukraine’s biggest printing house when the Russian missile hit. She was working in the binding department. It was 10.20am. Two colleagues – Tetaina Khrapina and Olha Kurasova – stood next to her. The women were operating a row of book-sewing machines. Another employee, Sveta Arestova, had just stepped away to take a telephone call.
The S-300 missile came through the roof. There was no warning. It instantly killed Ninadovksa and the others at her workstation. Arestova was injured but survived. The blast flipped over a 10-tonne book-finishing machine, killing Svitlana Ryzhenko, who was sitting at the end of the assembly line. Two more workers died at an adjacent table. Another, Roman Stroyhi, was killed by shards from a guillotine machine.