“Rydero” service “suspended publications” on the topic “Russia-Ukraine”

The publishing online service “Rydero”, which allows authors to publish an electronic book for free, as well as helping to sell books on online platforms, has decided to “temporarily suspend any publications” by authors on the topic of relations between Russia and Ukraine.

This was reported by journalist Oleg Kashin, whose book “Prymorskie partisans” was published in “Rydero”. Kashin confirmed to Radio Svoboda the receipt of a letter from the service, which states that “in order to prevent violations of the current legislation and in order to protect against the consequences of such violations in the form of administrative and criminal liability,” Rydero removes any texts from publication, as stated in the letter, “on topic Russia-Ukraine”. This also applies to the book “Prymorskie partisans”. Kashin was asked to remove a fragment of the text of this book (written even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022), which talks about the war in Donbas and, in particular, that “the history of Donetsk showed how many people in Russia are ready to shoot” .

Rydero’s decision to “suspend” publications on Ukrainian topics was reported against the background of the AST publishing house’s refusal to distribute books by writers Dmytro Bykov and Boris Akunin “due to their public statements” – apparently, it is about their support for Ukraine and condemnation of the war. It was also reported that the books of Bykov and Akunin were withdrawn from sale in online bookstores.

The day before, the Investigative Committee announced the initiation of a criminal case against Akunin (Gryhoriy Chkhartyshvili) on articles about so-called fakes about the army and calls for terrorism. Akunin noted that in Russia, for the first time since the Stalinist terror, a writer was equated with a terrorist.