Author: dmitriy.vasyura@gmail.com

Editor’s note: This article is part of a series of profiles highlighting successful Ukrainian startups and businesses. The series is funded by the regional investment fund Ukraine-Moldova American Enterprise Fund (UMAEF) and created in partnership with Spend With Ukraine, a non-profit organization that launched a platform to showcase businesses with Ukrainian roots and provide one more meaningful way to support Ukraine – by choosing to spend with Ukraine. The series’ sponsors are not involved in the editorial process of the writing of these profiles.

Andriy Vyshnevsky believes the future of Ukraine lies in the pages of books.
This year, he helped resurrect Ukraine’s oldest independent publishing house, Osnovy, after purchasing the company with his wife Svitlana Matvienko, director of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies.
Now, as the CEO and co-owner of Osnovy, he is leading the company’s mission to educate Ukrainian citizens and popularize Ukrainian authors both at home and abroad. Ukraine is undergoing a literary renaissance as it faces Russia's full-scale invasion, with many looking to fill in the blanks left by decades of Soviet repression of Ukrainian culture.

“We have to recall our past and simplify access to the literature of earlier periods of Ukrainian history and return to our foundations. We need to understand how we can use that part of literature as a foundation for what we will build upon it,” he told the Kyiv Independent from Osnovy’s office in Kyiv’s historic center.
Osnovy is as old as independent Ukraine. Founded in 1992 by Canadian citizen Bohdan Kravchenko and Ukrainian citizen Solomiya Pavlychko, it was the first publishing house in the country to translate world classics into Ukrainian and has since published over 400 titles.

In its first phase, Osnovy focused on translating books on economics, philosophy, and politics, from Aristotle to Simone de Beauvoir—“the key texts on which the Western civilization is based,” Vshnevsky explains. Osnovy itself translates to "foundations."

Osnovy’s idea was to bridge the gap between Europe and the newly independent Ukrainian population that had suffered generations of restricted access to knowledge.

The company opened new doors to the international market after Dana Pavlychko, Solomiya’s daughter, took over in 2012 during its second phase. She shifted the focus to publishing English language photography and art books looking at niche subjects from orthodox churches to women working on Ukraine’s railways.

Looking towards the future, Vyshnevsky will prioritize the domestic market as Ukrainian society pulls through the traumas of war. Osnovy will go back to its foundational texts as well as new translations of modern literature, both fiction and non-fiction, to broaden its readers’ minds.
“The purpose of Osnovy is to provide Ukrainian society with intellectual resources to be better prepared for the challenges we are going to face after Ukraine wins this war,” he said.

Rising from the ashes

Osnovy was on its last legs when Vyshnevsky took over in June. The majority of the company’s dozen employees fled Ukraine during the full-scale invasion, including former-owner Dana Pavlychko, and efforts to keep it afloat from abroad were in vain.
Revenues dropped from Hr 8 million ($192,000) in 2022 to Hr 4 million ($96,000) in 2023, leaving Pavlychko with little option but to sell. Over the last six months, Vyshnevsky managed to build up the employees from two to 13 and the new team inherited 15,000 unsold books that helped provide some cash flow to restart the company.
Osnovy has a special place in Vyshnevsky’s heart as Bohdan Kravchenko was one of the first people he met after moving to Kyiv from his hometown Kharkiv in the early 2000s. He couldn’t imagine he would take over from Kravchenko 25 years later.
This year, Vyshnevsky is hopeful Osnovy will once again turn a profit with 57 book projects currently underway and plans to publish 30-40 titles per year.

His optimism is bolstered by the increasing number of Ukrainians turning to books as Russia pummels Ukrainian cultural institutions, including Osnovy’s printing partner Faktor Druk in Kharkiv, which suffered a major missile strike in May.
“It might sound paradoxical, but I think that the full-scale war encouraged people to read,” Vyshnevsky said.

"It might sound paradoxical, but I think that the full scale war encouraged people to read."

Osnovy first got going in 1992 with financial support from the International Renaissance Foundation, an NGO funded by philanthropist George Soros, although it was soon self-sufficient as the books flew off the shelves.
Vyshnevsky admits that Osnovy is a niche publishing house, and that the challenge is fulfilling its mission of popularizing specialized literature while making money. But Osnovy has a growing customer base, which Vyshnevsky was surprised to discover is very young, with around 85% between 18 and 35 years old.
He will also redirect Osnovy’s strategy towards smaller, independent bookstores rather than big retailers. Ukrainians have recently flocked towards cozy, community-focussed bookshops and Vyshnevsky is partnering with several across Ukraine as he aims to expand beyond the 100 stores currently stocking Osnovy’s publications.

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Success abroad and at home

The 2014 Euromaidan Revolution was a big catalyst for change for Osnovy and propelled the company to its peak popularity, Vyshnevsky said. While that was partially driven by Ukrainians’ surging interest in their culture, it was also because the revolution attracted the eyes of foreigners to Ukraine.
Under the direction of Dana Pavlychko, the company began publishing stylish photography and art books in English for the first time. The international market proved to be a hit, with over 300 stores in Europe and North America selling Osnovy’s books as well as online stores like Amazon.
“Photo books were a good tool to popularize Ukraine and Ukrainian culture,” Vyshnevsky said.

"Photo books were a good tool to popularize Ukraine and Ukrainian culture."

“We pay attention to the tactile characteristics. You should want to touch the book, hold it in your hands,” he added, commenting on the aesthetic graphic design and high-quality printing and binding.
One of Osnovy’s most well-known publications, “Decommunized: Soviet-Ukrainian Mosaics” by photographer Yevgen Nikiforov, was popular both domestically and abroad and deals with the complexities of Ukraine's Soviet and independent identity. Through communist-era mosaics, Nikiforov shows the imperial legacy of the Soviet Union while also honoring the craftsmanship of Ukrainian artists, Vyshnevsky said.

Osnovy is preparing a new edition of the book which will take on a different perspective as some of the mosaics have been destroyed by the war, or are stuck in Russian-occupied territories. The new edition will be a chance to reflect on Ukraine’s past, present, and future, in the context of the full-scale invasion, Vyshnevsky said.

“By printing these books in English and selling them abroad, we make our own reflection inclusive by encouraging and engaging people from the West into this process. We are trying to show that Ukrainians were deprived of the opportunity to communicate with the Western world, but we are a part of the Western world,” he added.

Building up a nation

Before Vyshnevsky’s takeover, Osnovy was primarily focused on the international market and rarely marketed books inside Ukraine. Vyshnevsky wants to go back to the company’s roots and see’s Osnovy as a public service for Ukraine to strengthen its weaknesses that could be exploited by Russia again.
“Our role is to prepare Ukrainian society for life after the war is finished,” he said.
“We need critical thinking, good education, and the professional skills and ability not only to survive, but also to build sustainable institutions and to develop them.”
In the fallout of revolutions and the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians are unearthing their history, particularly the writers purged by the Soviet regime in the 1920s and 1930s known as the Executed Renaissance. Osnovy published a series of illustrated books from this generation in 2016, although the writers have only recently garnered more mainstream attention.

“This literature is not just an archive like for many other European nations. It is material we need to work on right now and to go back to the past to better understand our future,” he said.

Russia’s full-scale invasion has also pushed readers towards contemporary Ukrainian literature and authors writing about the war. Osnovy had never published modern-day Ukrainian writers, but Vyshnevsky is now considering it to meet the demand.
He also believes it's important for foreigners to read Ukrainian authors. As Ukraine begins EU integration talks, the country should have translations in European languages of its novels that were “eliminated” from the European cultural context, Vyshnevsky stressed.
“It is important to fill the gap caused by 70 years of Soviet rule,” he said.
“If we don't, this gap will remain and we will be trying to build over it, instead of building a solid foundation.”

‘Everyone says culture has nothing to do with it. It does’ — Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Rafeyenko on Russia’s warUkrainian author Volodymyr Rafeyenko never thought he would write a novel in Ukrainian. He was a native of Donetsk, an eastern Ukrainian city where he grew up speaking Russian and completed a degree in Russian philology. Early on in his career, he was the winner of some of Russia’sThe Kyiv IndependentLiliane Bivings

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 1,083 civilians have been blown up by Russian anti-personnel mines, 333 of them killed. Kharkiv, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions are the most polluted.

Since the large-scale invasion began in February 2022, more than 1,000 people have been blown up by Russian anti-personnel mines in the unoccupied territories. This is reported by the Ministry of Defense, reports UNN.

Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion in the de-occupied territories, 1,083 civilians have been blown up by Russian anti-personnel mines. Of these, 333 were killed and 750 were injured. Kharkiv, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions remain the most polluted liberated territories.,

– reported in the Ministry of Defense.

Details

It is also noted that in 2024, 35 thousand square kilometers of the territory of Ukraine were marked as not containing evidence of the presence of risks of explosive substances, which made it possible to reduce the area of potentially contaminated territories from 174 thousand to 139 thousand square kilometers.

recall

The government is working to implement an integrated approach in humanitarian demining. Almost 35.5 thousand square kilometers of Ukrainian land have already been returned to Operation. More than 4 thousand sappers are working on mine clearance in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military will get over 30,000 DeepStrike attack drones in 2025 within President Volodymyr Zelensky's resilience plan, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov announced on Dec. 5.

According to Umerov, DeepStrike drones are of the new generation, capable of "operating autonomously over long distances and hitting targets with high accuracy."

"We are demonstrating to the world that Ukraine is capable of innovation and technological independence. Even in wartime, we are developing cutting-edge production and strengthening our defense capabilities," Umerov said.

Zelensky presented a 10-point resilience plan to the Ukrainian parliament on Nov. 19, which includes measures to stabilize the front line, increase the technological capabilities of Ukrainian forces, and overcome bureaucracy in the army.

The production of part of the DeepStrike drones that will be supplied to the Ukrainian army next year was financed by international partners who invested in the Ukrainian defense industry, according to Umerov.

The minister did not say how these drones will be distributed among Ukrainian troops.

Ukraine is working to scale up domestic defense production, aiming to produce 1.5 million drones by the end of 2024.

There is a "significant volume" of new and long-term orders for first-person-view (FPV) drones, reconnaissance drones, long-range drones, and missile-drones, Zelensky said on Dec. 3.

Kyiv employs long-range drones to strike deep into Russian territory, targeting military infrastructure such as airfields and logistics, as well as oil refineries and depots.

Everything we know about Ukraine’s new Palianytsia missile-droneWith much fanfare, Ukraine has announced a new weapon – the Palianytsia missile drone. The first images of the Palianytsia were shown in a video President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on X on Aug. 25, following his announcement the day before about the new weapon’s first successful combat use. “Today…The Kyiv IndependentDaria Svitlyk

In Poltava, the exchange of prisoners of war is considered official, and the military receives all guarantees. Such exchanges are easier to carry out on the battlefield than after prisoners get into the FSB system.

If a field exchange of prisoners of war is carried out, it is then counted in the official one. The military receives all guarantees, including social ones.

This was stated by Dmitry Usov, Secretary of the coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war, during the international human rights conference "decades 2014-2024. reclaiming human rights. Preserving democracy", Reports UNN.

It is easier to make a field exchange with certain life risks than an official one. Because as soon as our military gets into the dcs system, gets into the FSB, the Investigative Committee and all other structures, then it is already difficult to get them out of there. And when this happens on the battlefield, you can agree there

– said Usov.

He revealed a certain strategy that the coordination headquarters has during exchanges.

"Even if there is a field exchange, it is then counted in the official one. All guarantees, including social ones, are given to the military and his family," Usov said.

addition

On December 2, it was reported that the Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia, Tatyana Moskalkova, allegedly published a list of Ukrainian prisoners of war and cynically stated that "Ukraine does not agree to take them away."

Subsequently, Ukraine denied the terrorist country's reports about allegedly refusing to exchange prisoners of War.

Usov informed UNN that the Russian side was again beginning to delay the exchange of prisoners of war.