OREANDA-NEWS. The press service of the State TV and Radio Committee of Ukraine reported that in the first quarter of 2019  it prohibited importing into the country about 420,000 copies of books from Russia. The ban is based on the resolution of the advisory council of the Committee, which recognized the publications as having an “anti-Ukrainian character”.

In total, since the beginning of the year, 1,207 refusals to issue permits were sent to licensees. 1,125 of refusals were made because of the failure to provide the necessary documents or due to incorrect information identified in the documents.

The total amount of fines that the State TV and Radio Committee imposed on books imported from Russia amounted to about 12,500 dollars.

Earlier, almost 3,000 Russian books were banned in Ukraine after the imposition of censorship in 2017. The books were often forbidden under far-fetched and absurd pretexts. For instance, one of the publications was banned due to the fact that the author responded about Russia as an amazing and surprising country where amazing people live. Some books were forbidden due to the mention in them of the “Odnoklassniki” and “VKontakte” social networks suppressed in Ukraine territory.

Moreover, the ban touched upon books of Russian classics (for example, “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov) and even textbooks on the economy. Ross Geddes’s book translated from English into Russian was banned because the publisher’s preface contained quotes from speeches of Russian President Vladimir Putin.