Russian forces attacked Epicentr’s hub in Khmelnytskyi, a city in western Ukraine, 10 times on 13 October, starting five large fires that destroyed about 85% of the goods stored inside, the company said.

Epicentr is a Ukrainian chain of home-improvement and household-goods stores. The attack adds pressure to Ukraine’s logistics network, already damaged by Russian strikes. On 10 September, Ukrainian entrepreneur Ruslan Shostak, co-owner of the popular retail chains Eva and Varus, said that 2.1 million square meters of Ukraine’s modern warehouse space had been destroyed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. He put the country’s total modern warehouse space at approximately 5 million square meters. The strike on the hub came the same day Russia opened a barrage of 39 ballistic missiles on Ukraine’s power grid.

About 30 drones in the sky kept the fire from being put out, and the hub burned down completely overnight, Epicentr said. None of its people were hurt, the company said.

“The most important thing is that all our people are alive,” Epicentr wrote.

Russia had earlier completely destroyed Epicentr’s two largest logistics complexes, in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast, the company said. The Khmelnytskyi hub had remained effectively its only surviving large warehouse complex. Goods were sent from there to the company’s shopping centers, and people worked there every day “so that millions of Ukrainians could buy what they need,” it wrote. Epicentr described every such attack as a blow to Ukrainian businesses’ ability to operate, pay wages, preserve jobs, and support the country’s economy.

Epicentr’s earlier losses

Epicentr said in August that 10 of its shopping centers had been completely destroyed since February 2022. Another 13 retail sites had been damaged, and one in Melitopol remained under Russian occupation, it said. At the time, the company operated 70 shopping centers, down from 80 at the end of 2021.

Earlier, during a Russian missile attack overnight on 5 August, Epicentr’s logistics center in Kyiv burned down completely, Epicentr’s Yulia Chudnovets said. The company’s ceramic tile plant in Kalynivka, one of the largest in Ukraine, was effectively lost, she said. One employee was killed and three were injured, she added.

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On 25 May 2024, Russian airstrikes on an Epicentr hypermarket in Kharkiv killed 19 people, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Attacks across Khmelnytskyi Oblast

Fires broke out at enterprises in Khmelnytskyi and Shepetivka districts on 13 October, Serhii Tiurin, head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Military Administration, reported. He did not name the enterprises. On 14 October, Tiurin said one of the fires had been put out, and crews were still fighting the other. Khmelnytskyi Mayor Oleksandr Symchyshyn said six people were injured in Khmelnytskyi district that day, where Russian strikes damaged private enterprises, a gas station, and a medical facility.

A Russian missile attack on Kyiv overnight on 7 October destroyed warehouse premises in the Podil district and badly damaged a book warehouse of Ukrainian publishing house Knyholav, the publisher said. Tens of thousands of books were lost, but no staff were hurt. It was the second time this year that Russia has destroyed Knyholav's stock.

Russia has destroyed Ukrainian books since the start of its invasion, seizing them from libraries in occupied areas and burning them in boiler houses. Since spring, it has also been aiming missiles and drones at the industry that makes them—printing houses, publishers' warehouses, and bookshops—destroying books by the millions. Each strike takes out not only stock but the reprints, new titles, and textbooks Ukrainian readers were waiting for, at a time when publishing in Ukrainian is part of how the country holds onto its identity.

Tens of thousands of books lost

The publisher can't yet say how many books were destroyed or can no longer be saved, it said, but tens of thousands were lost. The final count will be possible only once staff get full access to the warehouse and check the state of every book.

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The losses include new titles Knyholav received over the past two months. They also include reprints of books Russia had destroyed in July at its previous warehouse. Knyholav had moved its rebuilt stock to this new warehouse after a Russian strike on 19 July destroyed its previous one outside Kyiv, along with about 250,000 books.

"This is a tangible blow for us. These are books we created, printed, and prepared for you," the publisher wrote. "But despite everything, we are holding on!"

The strike hit Kyiv's Podilskyi district, where a Russian attack caused a fire and the partial collapse of the floors of an office and warehouse building, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The same overnight attack killed people in Pryluky, Kyiv, Kremenchuk, and Oleksandriia.

Millions of books burned

Russia's attacks destroyed more than 1.5 million books in July alone, Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna said. On 1 August, a strike on the logistics center of publisher Ranok and the distribution center of the KnyhoLand bookshop chain in Kharkiv destroyed 8 million books, including 628,000 new school textbooks. Over three months, Russia burned about 13 million Ukrainian books, nearly a third of everything the country printed in 2025. In August, Russian missiles also hit Kyiv's largest book market.