France, Aug. 14 -- In a northern district of the city of Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, the street leading to one of the country's largest book storage and distribution centres is quiet and green.

From the outside, the scale of the devastation is invisible, save for the wooden panels replacing the windows.

Upon entering the building, the first whiff of burnt paper sets the scene inside - one of total desolation. Only the shell of this 10,000 m2 warehouse, bigger than a football pitch, remains and it is filled with mountains of ash, scattered piles of burnt books and iron shelves that have been melted and distorted by fire. This is all that's left of the 8 million books that were stored here. The contents of the warehouse were destroy...