“They brought food, but I refused it. In the first days, I ate the small supplies I had brought from Zaporizhzhia. When they ran out, I drank sweet tea,” Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna wrote in March 2022, after she was released from 10 days in Russian captivity. “When I yelled loudly, one of the Chechens hit me and said I was not at home and needed to watch my tone.”
When the full-scale invasion began, Viktoriia, 26, was in the Luhansk region. She wanted to be closer to the front line and wrote multiple articles from hot spots in east and south Ukraine. On her way to Mariupol she was detained by Russian forces for the first time, but then released.
Later, she began freelancing so she had more freedom over where she traveled and what she wrote. She visited occupied territories and wrote about them, including Mariupol, the abduction of Ukrainian children, and the lives and moods of people in annexed Crimea.
In August 2023 Viktoriia went missing in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Nine months later, in April 2024, the occupiers confirmed she was in Russia, but details about her detention and condition were kept secret.
It later emerged she might have been transferred to pre-trial detention center #2 in Taganrog, Rostov region.
“This facility holds civilians without any reason for detention and is completely inaccessible; lawyers can’t enter, even when individuals are there under judicial investigation or trial,” said Tetiana Katrichenko, executive director of the Media Initiative for Human Rights. “For those without any legal proceedings, there are no lawyers available, and no one can enter the facility. We can only obtain information from those who have been released.”
On October 10, the Ukrainian media reported Viktoriia’s death after Russia’s Ministry of Defense replied to an inquiry from her father. A letter dated October 2 said she died on September 19 and her body would be returned to Ukraine as part of “an exchange of bodies of detained people.”
On October 18, when Russia repatriated the bodies of 501 Ukrainians, there was nobody identified as Viktoriia handed over in return, according to Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
“Until the body is received, we can’t talk about the cause of death,” said Petro Yatsenko, at the Coordination Headquarters. “The family received these documents and, taking into account our experience in obtaining such documents, there is a very high likelihood that Viktoriia, unfortunately, is not among the living.”
The Coordination Headquarters had been working on returning Viktoriia to Ukraine when the family received the letter, he said. The circumstances of her death are not known.
“According to information we received, it occurred during transfer from the pre-trial detention center in Taganrog to Lefortovo, in Moscow,” he said. “This transfer was part of the process of returning Viktoriia. Not an exchange, because she is a civilian, but we were working to bring her back along with other civilians and were close to the final stage.”
The delay in repatriation may be to hide the cause of death, as the Russians have done in other cases, he said.
“We still haven’t received the bodies from the Il-76 plane crash, in which 65 Ukrainian servicemen who were in captivity supposedly died,” Yatsenko said. “We constantly demand the return of these bodies in order to understand what happened and to hand them over to the families, but neither Ukrainian representatives nor international independent observers were allowed to the crash site.”
After the Russian claims about Viktoriia, Ukrainian journalists and media representatives called on the United Nations, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, and Red Cross to take decisive and immediate action over her death and to help 29 other journalists in captivity.
“Knowing Viktoriia Roshchyna had been imprisoned for over a year and was in good physical health prior to her captivity, we have every reason to believe her death was either the result of deliberate murder or a consequence of cruel treatment and violence,” they said in a statement signed by almost 300 people.
Russian forces are specifically targeting Ukrainian journalists, and have lists of people they are hunting as they aim to disrupt international coverage of the war and occupation. Even though many journalists living in occupied territories stopped working after the full-scale invasion, Russian forces continue to detain and discredit them.
“Russia demonizes detained civilians, including journalists, accusing them of terrorist activities, espionage, and subversive actions in the occupied territories,” said Serhii Tomilenko, head of Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists.
Vladyslav Yesypenko, Iryna Danylovich, Dmytro Khyliuk, and Serhii Tsyhipa are among those detained, and their cases show how Russian forces work against those who report the truth about people’s lives, he said. Even administrators of Telegram channels have been accused of terrorism.
“There is a lack of any access to information, medical assistance, or legal support,” Tomilenko said. “The fate of Iryna Levchenko, for example, is completely unknown, except that she was detained by the occupiers in Melitopol in May 2023.”
In October, the Council of Europe adopted a resolution on Russian captives, which mentioned Ukrainian journalists for the first time. While the Ukrainian government seeks a way to rescue those in captivity, human rights defenders and professional organizations are urging their colleagues around the world to stand in solidarity and raise awareness.
“The tragedy involving Viktoriia Roshchyna shows we don’t have time to delay, as each day can truly turn into a tragedy for those in captivity,” Tomilenko said.
He is also confident that foreign governments can assist in the release of Ukrainian journalists.
“The cases of Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, in which American journalists were included in exchange lists and those Russia agreed to swap were identified, provide an impetus,” he said. “It shows that there are still ways to find solutions, but ultimately it depends on foreign governments prioritizing this issue.”
Elina Beketova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, focusing on the occupied territories of Ukraine. She worked as a journalist, editor, and TV anchor for various news stations in Kharkiv and Kyiv.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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