On October 15 official opening ceremony of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2024 was held, becoming the 76th Frankfurter Buchmesse to be held on October 16-20, 2024.

Over 30 Ukrainian publishing houses took part in the festival, and yet 5 representatives of the russian federation were also admitted, despite russia's ongoing war against Ukraine and international sanctions. Russian propaganda publishing house “Eksmo” is among the participants.

“The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Galdenwang, drew attention to the “influence operations” of russian intelligence services that spread russian disinformation and propaganda in Germany. It is strange to see a stand from the country of the aggressor saying that “not everything is so clear,” writes the director of the Ukrainian publishing house “Ranok”, Viktor Kruglov.

Ukrainian Book Institute said in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda that 5 russian publishing houses were taking part in the fair in Frankfurt this year. Last year there were three just such publishers.

Among russian publishing houses are:

  • A Walk through History;
  • Eksmo Publishing House Ltd;
  • LLC Samokat Publishing House;
  • Phoenix LLC;
  • Polyandria Print LLC.

“The organizers of this and several other fairs adhere to their own decision not to allow the official russian state stand to participate. However, individual stands of russian publishers are present everywhere. This year there are already 5 of them. Among them is the stand of the largest russian publishing house, Eksmo, notorious for its anti-Ukrainian publications, which is why the publishing house has been under sanctions in Ukraine for several years,” said the head of the Ukrainian Book Institute, Oleksandra Koval.

Book Institute and the Ukrainian Association of Publishing House and Book Distributors prepared letters to organizers of the fair, but to no avail. As a throwback to 2019, the President of Ukraine imposed sanctions on “Eksmo” for three years for anti-Ukrainian and separatist literature which misrepresented history and questioned the right of the Ukrainian nation to its own statehood.