Burns, broken bones, and silence: Viktoriia Roshchyna — A Ukrainian journal tortured to death in Russian custody | World News

For months, her family waited, hoped, and searched — clinging to the belief that Viktoriia Roshchyna, a fearless young journal, would return. When she finally did, it was in a body bag mislabelled as an “unidentified male.”The 27-year-old freelance reporter had disappeared in July 2023 while investigating secret detention sites in Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia. What followed was a chilling silence, broken only unconfirmed reports and rumours — until DNA tests confirmed the worst.
According to The Guardian report, her body, repatriated to Ukraine in February, bore horrifying signs of torture: fractured bones, suspected electric burns, her head shaved, and several internal organs removed. It was a brutal end for a journal who had spent her career documenting war crimes and speaking truth to power, even when it placed her in mortal danger.
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‘Nothing more important than journalism’
According to CNN, Roshchyna’s colleagues said there was “nothing more important in her life than journalism.” A freelance journal, she was respected for her brave frontline reporting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Known lovingly as Vika her family, Roshchyna was no stranger to the realities of conflict. Her father was a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan War, and she was just 17 when Russia annexed Crimea. She and her ser grew up in Kryvyi Rih, the same city as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, around 50 km from the Russian advance into southern Ukraine in 2022. Her parents still live there.
“She was obsessed with work and uncompromising,” said Sevhil Musaieva, editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, while speaking to The Guardian. “She had no life beyond her job, no friends, no partner. But also doing extraordinary work. For her, it was a mission. She was one of the bravest journals I met in my career.”
To protect her sources and herself, Roshchyna took extreme precautions. She used multiple phones, enabled disappearing messages, and wrote her reports in files that would automatically delete. Sometimes, she would vanish for weeks at a time, only to suddenly reappear with new stories.Story continues below this ad
Her first major brush with danger came in March 2022, when she was reporting from Berdiansk, a city under Russian occupation. She was captured a soldier and handed over to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Forced to record a propaganda video, she was eventually released after public pressure mounted.
However, she continued to cross the frontlines. She revealed the harassment faced workers at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and investigated the shooting of two teenage boys who resed Russian occupation.
On what would be her final assignment, Roshchyna set out on July 25, 2023, in search of so-called black sites — secret locations like basements or factories where FSB agents were allegedly torturing civilians and extracting forced confessions. She was also compiling a l of the officials involved.
But somewhere along that path, her mission came to a harrowing end.Story continues below this ad
‘Weight dropped to 30 kg, couldn’t lift head off pillow’
Just days into her reporting trip, Viktoriia Roshchyna’s father, Volodymyr Roshchyn, began to worry. His daughter had stopped responding to messages.
What followed was a months-long silence, broken only fragments of information pieced together her father and the testimonies of three fellow detainees who were held with her in a notorious Russian prison — the pre-trial detention centre Sizo 2 in Taganrog, near the Russian-Ukrainian border.
The Taganrog facility is infamous for its brutal conditions. According to CNN, prisoners there were subjected to both physical and psychological torment. Food was scarce, and medical care was virtually nonexent.
One of Roshchyna’s former cellmates, who was released in September, recalled the chilling details of her capture. Roshchyna believed she had been spotted a drone. A police car arrived, and she was taken in for questioning. After several days in custody, she was moved to a secret detention site in Melitopol known among detainees as “the garages.”Story continues below this ad
“During interrogations, they used electric shocks … She got stabbed a few times – I saw them on her: arm for sure, leg too … Fresh knife scar – forearm, soft tissue between wr and elbow. A scar of roughly 3cm, pierced through,” the cellmate said. “She said one guy, she called him a jerk … was brutal, unhinged.”
Following the torture, Roshchyna was transported alone in a Jeep to Taganrog. There, she was held in isolation.
Her mental and physical health deteriorated quickly. “She arrived already pumped full of unknown drugs,” a second detainee who encountered Roshchyna at Taganrog told the publication. “She arrived and she basically started to go crazy.”
“We would talk to her but she was lost in her head, eyes terrified,” her cellmate recalled. Then, Roshchyna stopped eating altogether. She would lie “curled up foetal on the floor” behind a curtain near the toilet.Story continues below this ad
Roshchyna’s weight reportedly dropped to 30 kg. “She could stand up, but only with me helping as she was in such a state that she could not even lift her head off the pillow. I would prop her up and she would grab the top bunk to pull herself upright,” her cellmate said.
Her family had no idea where she was until nine months later, when Moscow finally admitted it was holding her in detention. Towards the end of August, Roshchyna was allowed to phone home. Her parents were told Ukrainian negotiators that she was on a hunger strike.
On the call, Roshchyna was speaking in Russian. “I was promised that I would be home in September,” she told them. Her father urged her to eat. Then she said her farewells. “Well, that’s it. e, e. Mom, Dad, I love you.”
Missing from databases
In October, Petro Yatsenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Coordination Centre for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, revealed heartbreaking news. Roshchyna, he said, had died during a transfer from the Taganrog detention facility to Moscow — a move that was supposedly in preparation for her release in a prisoner exchange.Story continues below this ad
But that exchange never happened. An officer later claimed she hadn’t made it to the final l, blaming it on her “own fault”.
Back home, her father refuses to accept this version of events. He has requested additional examinations and continues to write letters seeking clarity, including to the Taganrog facility itself. However, he has only received two replies from Aleksandr Shtoda, the director of Sizo 2. The most recent, sent in January, claimed Roshchyna “is not and was not led in the databases”.
In November 2022, Roshchyna had opened up on what motivated her as she received an award for courage from the International Women’s Media Foundation. Rather than going to Los Angeles, she sent a message, honouring her fellow journals.
“We have remained faithful to our mission, to convey the truth to the world, countering Russian propaganda,” she said as per The Guardian. “Unfortunately, many journals have died. I want to dedicate this award to them. After all, they died in the fight for the truth, trying to record Russian crimes. I thank them.”