Viktoriia Roshchyna. Photo: Slidstvo.Info
An investigation has revealed that the Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna died on 19 September 2024 in a pre-trial detention centre in the town of Kizel, Perm Krai, Russia. Previously, she was known to have been held in the occupied territories and in Taganrog, but the place of her death had remained unknown.
Source: an investigation by Slidstvo.Info, an independent Ukrainian team of investigative journalists
Details: The journalists found Roshchyna’s death certificate in closed Russian databases. It was issued by the Leninsky department of the registry office of Perm City Administration. The date of death was recorded as 19 September 2024.
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Roshchyna’s death certificate
Photo: Slidstvo.Info
Ukrainian prosecutor Taras Semkiv said that Roshchyna’s death occurred in the detention centre in Kizel. The official cause of death has not yet been established, as her body was brought back to Ukraine in a condition that did not allow a full forensic examination to be carried out.
Quote from Semkiv: “She had been there for less than two weeks, and it was there that she died. It happened in the pre-trial detention centre in the town of Kizel.”
Details: The journalists also spoke with a witness who travelled on the same prison train as Roshchyna during her transfer to Kizel.
Former prisoner of war Danylo said that on 11 September 2024, eight days before her death, Roshchyna was transferred from the Taganrog detention centre to detention centre No. 3 in Kizel, Perm Krai.
The transfer took three days, from 9 to 11 September. Danylo said: “She walked past a couple of times, they were escorting her to the toilet. She was very thin, nothing but bones.”
The prisoners were subjected to severe abuse during the so-called intake process at the Kizel detention centre on 11 September.
“I was beaten for an hour or two. They’d give me a minute to catch my breath and then start again. During the intake I lost consciousness twice. The women’s heads were shaved, you could hear them crying,” Danylo recalled.
Semkiv noted that throughout the entire period of Viktoriya Roshchyna’s captivity – since August 2023 – Russia never officially acknowledged that she was being held in detention.
Read more: The Viktoriia Project: the story of the captivity and torture endured by journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna and thousands of Ukrainians imprisoned by Russia
Background:
In March 2022, Roshchyna was captured by Russian forces and held for 10 days in the temporarily occupied city of Berdiansk.
In 2022, Roshchyna wrote a series of articles for Ukrainska Pravda from the temporarily occupied territories. Her work included stories about life in occupied Crimea during the war, the sham referendum in occupied Donetsk Oblast, and a photo report from the devastated city of Mariupol.
On 25 July 2023, Roshchyna left Ukraine for Poland, planning to make the three-day journey via Russia to the occupied part of Ukraine’s east.
On 3 August 2023, Roshchyna went missing in Russian-occupied territory.
It was not until May 2024 that Russia admitted to having detained Roshchyna. The Russian Ministry of Defence sent a letter confirming this to her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn.
Russia delayed the repatriation of Roshchyna’s body, which was only returned in February 2025.
The Office of the Prosecutor General reported that Roshchyna’s body bore multiple signs of torture and ill-treatment: abrasions, bruises, a broken rib and evidence of electrocution.
The investigative team conducting the inquiry confirmed that the body was brought back to Ukraine after an autopsy conducted in Russia. Journalists learned from law enforcement sources that the body was missing several internal organs – the brain, the eyeballs and part of the trachea. An international forensic pathologist believes this may have been an attempt to conceal the true cause of death, including possible suffocation.
Viktoria’s funeral was held in Kyiv on 8 August.
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