27-Year-Old Ukrainian Journalist is Latest Victim of Russian Bestiality
Sadly, Russia hated her work, and it cut short Viktoriya’s career and life at the age of 27. The crime and her return home caught the attention of global news outlets.
Roshchyna went missing on August 3, 2023, in Russian-occupied territories. Moscow confirmed her detention in May 2024, after previously holding her for 10 days in March 2022. Her death was reported on October 10, 2024, via a letter from Russian officials to her father, later confirmed by Ukrainian authorities. Her sad journey from seizure by Russians to her recent return home was marked by abuse, brutality and torture. Evidence of bestiality was visible everywhere on her emaciated body. Perhaps the most horrific sign of the inhuman brutality committed by Russians was that organs were removed from her body to complicate gathering forensic evidence.
The Media Initiative for Human Rights stated she was held in Berdyansk’s Penal Colony No. 77 and Taganrog’s Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2, known as one of Russia’s harshest facilities for Ukrainians.
Roshchyna has worked for Hromadske, Ukrainska Pravda, Radio Free Europe, and others, earning the International Women’s Media Foundation’s 2022 Courage in Journalism Award.
Journalist affiliated with the Hromadske Ukrainian publication, Viktoriya Roshchyna, who prepared materials on military actions in the east and south of Ukraine in 2022, was kidnapped by Russian occupiers in Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia region. She died a horrible death in Russian captivity, according to a representative of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War in Ukraine Petro Yatsenko said.
“Indeed, we conducted an internal investigation and, unfortunately, this information has been confirmed. Unfortunately, the information about Victoria’s death has been confirmed,” Yatsenko said on the air of the national telethon on Thursday evening.
In 2023, she again traveled to the Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine via third countries to prepare a report and disappeared on August 3. In May 2024, Russia admitted for the first time that it had detained Viktoriya.
As reported with reference to the investigation of the international organization Forbidden Stories, Russia finally returned her body without some internal organs, presumably to hide the cause of her death.
The investigative team confirmed that the body was brought to the territory of Ukraine already bearing signs that an autopsy was performed in Russia. According to law enforcement agencies, Viktoria was missing parts of the brain, eyeballs and larynx.
An expert pathologist believes that the absence of these organs was intended to hide the true cause of the young journalist’s death: strangulation or suffocation. These actions by Moscow surely qualify as a war crime, all associated with the investigation have confirmed.
According Ukrainian and other sources that managed to rebuild the chain of events leading to her murder, representatives of the FSB (Russian Federal Security Service) and the Russian Armed Forces abducted Viktoriya in the city of Berdiansk, where she was preparing materials on military operations in the east and south of Ukraine, law enforcement officers have begun criminal proceedings, the Prosecutor General’s Office reports.
“According to the investigation, on March 15, 2022, representatives of the FSB and the armed forces of the aggressor country abducted a Hromadske journalist in the city of Berdiansk, who was preparing materials on military operations in the east and south of Ukraine. Currently, her whereabouts are unknown,” according to the statement on Facebook.
“Our journalist Viktoriya Roshchyna is probably being held captive by the Russian occupiers. She filmed videos and wrote articles from hot spots all the days of the Russo-Ukraine war. On March 16, we learned that Victoria was detained by the Russian FSB. At present, nothing is known about her whereabouts,’ the media said on Twitter.
A joint investigation by Reporters Without Borders and Ukrainian investigative news outlet Slidstvo found that she was arrested in Energodar in southern Ukraine, and later held for several weeks in the Russian-held city of Melitopol.
From there, she was transferred to a jail in the Russian port city of Taganrog. The investigation said she stopped eating in prison and had "knife wounds" on her body, according to her cellmate.
More than 40 journalists from 13 international media outlets have participated in the investigation, conducting over 50 interviews with former prisoners, ex-prison guards, and human rights activists.
Roshchyna’s body was handed over in late February, reportedly tagged with the number 757 and falsely identified in Russian documents as an “unidentified male.”
Yuriy Belousov, head of the office’s war crimes department, said the young journalist’s body showed multiple signs of torture, including abrasions, hemorrhages, a broken rib, and possible evidence of electric shock. The investigation revealed the body bore signs of a Russian autopsy, with missing organs, including the brain, eyeballs, and part of the trachea.
An international forensic expert consulted by the project suggested the removal of these organs could obscure evidence of strangulation or asphyxiation, potentially constituting a war crime.
A bruise on Roshchyna’s neck indicated a possible hyoid bone fracture, a rare injury often linked to strangulation, the report noted.
The Russian marking “SPAS,” possibly meaning “total arterial damage to the heart,” may reflect an official cause of death.
Roshchyna’s father, Volodymyr, requested additional forensic examinations, unconvinced by initial findings, according to prosecutors.
Due to the body’s mummified state, the cause of death remains undetermined, and the Prosecutor General’s Office is arranging further tests with samples already collected, the report said.
Roshchyna worked as a freelancer for various independent news outlets, including Ukrainska Pravda, and had collaborated with the Ukrainian service of U.S.-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe.
The Russians held Viktoriyia in several torture prisons, in Enerhodar and Melitopol for several months then, in December 2023, she was taken to SIZO-2 remand prison in Taganrog (Russia) which is particularly notorious for its shocking treatment of Ukrainian political prisoners. The journalists were given access to a part of the testimony that was given on condition of anonymity, by a former hostage who shared a cell for some time at SIZO-2 with Roshchyna. The woman recalled that Roshchyna had various scares on her body – on her arms and legs, including one caused by a knife, after her treatment in the Russian torture prisons. The cellmate also confirmed that Roshchyna had been subjected to torture through electric currents with wires attached to the most sensitive parts of the body. Some of the wounds were very recent, and Roshchyna clearly needed treatment for them. Her requests for medication here and on other occasions were ignored.
Viktoriya’s extreme weight loss appears to have been because of the torture and the psychological pressure she endured. Aside from visiting her once, the SIZO management did nothing until June when Viktoriya was placed in hospital, seemingly for two or three weeks. At that stage, the cellmate says, her weight had fallen dramatically. She weighed around 30 kilograms and couldn’t stand without the cellmate’s help.
Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian hostages are tortured and ill-treated in all Russian and Russian-controlled prisons and SIZO, but Taganrog is especially notorious for its appalling treatment. Since the Russian defense ministry had finally responded to the family’s formal demands for information and confirmed, in late April 2024 that Viktoriya was “detained and currently on the territory of the Russian Federation,” it is unlikely that they wanted her to die. A number of political prisoners, prisoners of war and hostages have, however, died in Russian prisons, being either directly tortured to death or effectively, through the failure to provide medical care or release a person whose health, even by Russian standards, made detention impossible. It seems clear that the staff believe in their impunity from punishment.
She was held in solitary confinement from then on. She was last seen alive on 8 September 2024. The terse note that her father received in early October 2024 stated that the journalist had died on 19 September 2024. She was supposed to have been included in a prisoner exchange.
According to observations by Ukrainian officials and journalists, Russia bears full responsibility for Viktoriya’s death, as the young woman should never have been in captivity. The fact that they are hiding her body almost certainly means that there are other crimes that they are trying to conceal.
The Committee to Protect Journalists demanded last week that Russian authorities must immediately disclose the circumstances surrounding the death in Russian captivity of Viktoriya.
“CPJ is shocked by the news of Viktoriya Roshchyna’s death during her unlawful imprisonment by Russia. We extend our deep condolences to her family and loved ones,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Responsibility for her death lies with the Russian authorities, who detained her for daring to report the truth on the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukrainian and Russian authorities must do everything in their power to investigate Roshchyna’s death.”
Viktoriya worked for Hromadske for more than five years. She was one of those journalists who do not wait for an editorial assignment. As soon as something was happening, Viktoriya was already there. At rallies, skirmishes, sites of murders. She took on the most difficult challenges, loved law enforcement topics, attended high-profile and important court sessions. Time and geography were unimportant to her - at any moment, Viktoriya was ready to go on a business trip even before she was told to go. She had no days off, holidays, or sick leave.
In 2022, she was awarded the Courage in Journalism award by the International Women's Media Foundation for her reporting from east Ukraine.
“Viktoriya’s passing is not just the loss of a remarkable woman, but of an intrepid witness to history,” the group said in a statement after her death. “Regardless of her cause of death, we can say with certainty that her life was taken because she dared tell the truth. We hope her death will not be in vain: the international community must pressure Russia to cease targeting journalists and silencing press freedom.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has also appealed to the international community to respond to the conclusions of the investigation into the death of Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna in Russian captivity, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tykhy.
“We are grateful to the Forbidden Stories consortium and 45 journalists from 13 Ukrainian and foreign media outlets for their outstanding and shocking investigation. Viktoria Roshchyna's bravery, commitment to journalism, and genuine concern for human life were extraordinary. This collaborative journalistic work emphasizes her heroism and the barbarism of her murder by the Russians, while also expanding her efforts to expose the horrific fate of thousands of civilian hostages held by Russia,” he wrote on X.
“We urge the international community to respond to the findings of this investigation, which reveal systemic war crimes, human rights violations, abduction, torture, and murder in the Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied by Russia,” Tykhy noted.
“We specifically address @UNHumanRights, @UNHumanRightsUA, @UNESCO, @OSCE and @OSCE_RFoM, @coe, @CoE_CPT and @CoEHumanRights, as well as @hrw, @amnesty, and @RSF_inter,” he added.
“The issue of civilian hostages abducted and held by Russia requires increased international attention and immediate and strong response. Because what we are seeing right now is most likely the largest state-led civilian abduction operation in recent memory,” the MFA spokesperson noted.
“This must be condemned and prosecuted. Russian criminals responsible for these horrific atrocities must be held accountable,” he stressed.
Indeed, global condemnation is a must.
The ultimate perpetrator of this murder in cold blood and mutilation is Vladimir Putin, President Trump’s best friend.
