New testimony reveals final days of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna in captivity
New testimony obtained by Reporters Without Borders sheds light on the final days of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna while held in Russian captivity.
Witnesses transported alongside Viktoriia Roshchyna during a four-day transfer from Taganrog to Kizel, in the Perm region, described a woman reduced to the state of a ‘victim of the Holodomor’. Severely emaciated, ‘jaundiced’, and barely able to stand, she had reportedly embarked on a hunger strike. One fellow detainee recalled: ‘She said she would not eat while our boys were being tortured.’
Upon arrival at Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 3 in Kizel, she was still alive but frequently lost consciousness. The facility was damp, overcrowded and freezing; former prisoners of war said they were ‘shivering from the cold’.
On 18 September 2024, after reporting that she felt unwell, Viktoriia Roshchyna asked a guard for tea. He reportedly replied: ‘You’ve got the wrong place — you’re not in a position to ask for anything here.’ Medical staff later administered an injection, apparently to revive her. The following morning, she failed to rise for roll call. Found unconscious, she was removed by guards; other detainees do not know whether she was still alive at that point. The official date of her death is recorded as 19 September 2024.
Viktoriia Roshchyna’s ordeal began in the summer of 2023, when she entered Russia in order to reach the occupied Zaporizhzhia region. According to a local contact, she intended to locate informal detention sites — so-called ‘torture chambers’ — speak to former detainees, and report on their experiences. She was detained by Russian forces and moved between facilities in Enerhodar and Melitopol before being transferred to Taganrog. A former cellmate later said Viktoriia had been subjected to electric shocks and bore knife wounds on her arm and leg.
During nine months in detention in Taganrog, her weight fell to approximately 30 kilograms. Her cellmate described her condition: ‘She could stand, but only with my help… I would lift her head first; she would take hold of the bed frame, and only then could she get up.’ On 8 September 2024, she was transferred from the facility.
Though she had been expected to be included in a prisoner exchange, news of her death only emerged in October. Her body was returned to Ukraine in February 2025. The remains arrived in a bag labelled ‘unidentified male’. Inside was the body of a woman in a state of deep freezing, showing signs of cachexia. Identification was confirmed through DNA analysis. Forensic examination found that the brain, eyeballs and part of the larynx were missing, and that the hyoid bone was broken — findings which, according to one expert, may indicate an attempt to conceal evidence of strangulation.
