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Investigation Uncovers Crime Trail Behind Ukrainian Journalist Viktoria Roshchyna‘s Death in Russian Custody
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Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna died in a detention center in the Russian city of Kizel, Perm region, according to an investigation by Slidstvo.Info revealed on September 24.
The outlet, referring to data from Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, wrote that Roshchyna died on September 19, 2024. The same date was listed on her death certificate issued by the Leninsky Civil Registry Office of the Perm city administration.
Taras Semkiv, head of the Second Directorate of the Department for Combating Crimes Committed in Armed Conflict within the Prosecutor General’s Office, confirmed that the Ukrainian journalist had been held in the Kizel pre-trial detention center for less than two weeks before her death occurred there, Slidsvo.Info reported. Investigators are currently working to establish the full circumstances of her death.
Previously, it was known that Roshchyna was initially held in the temporarily occupied territories before being transferred to the Taganrog detention center in Russia’s Rostov region. Until now, the location of her death remained undisclosed.
Journalists spoke with a released Ukrainian serviceman named Danylo, who stated that Roshchyna had been moved from Taganrog to Kizel just eight days before her death. He noted that they traveled together on the same train.
“She was walking there, they escorted her to the toilet. She was very thin, nothing but bones,” the serviceman recalled.
Danylo added that the transfer took place between September 9 and 11, during which newly arrived detainees were subjected to torture.
“For an hour or two, they beat me constantly. They would give me a minute to rest and then start again. During the ‘reception,’ I lost consciousness twice. Women were shaved bald; you could hear them crying,” he said.
According to Danylo, in the Kizel detention center, Russians also beat to death Yevhen Matveyev, the mayor of Dniprorudne in Zaporizhzhia region.
Another released Ukrainian defender told investigators that prisoners in the facility were forbidden from moving around their cells or even sitting down. Communication between detainees was banned, and they were forced to listen to Russian songs as well as lectures that distorted the history of Russia and Ukraine.
Prosecutor Taras Semkiv stated that throughout Viktoria Roshchyna’s captivity, which began in August 2023, the Russian Federation never once admitted that she was being held in detention.
“Obviously, Russia will take every possible measure to conceal those responsible for her death, to conceal those involved in her unlawful imprisonment, and in the cruel treatment she endured,” Semkiv said.
Earlier, an international investigation found that the body of Viktoria Roshchyna, who died while in Russian captivity, was returned to Ukraine with several internal organs missing—an apparent attempt to conceal the true cause of her death.
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