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New Witness Accounts Detail Journalist Victoria Roshchyna’s Condition in Russian Custody
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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has gathered new eyewitness accounts regarding the death of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna in a Russian prison. These witnesses provided details about the journalist's extremely weakened state during her time in custody.
One witness who was with Roshchyna during her transfer from Taganrog to the city of Kizel in the Perm region recalled that the journey lasted four days. The transfer involved traveling by train and then in vans to cover a distance of almost 2,000 kilometers, according to Ukrainska Pravda on April 22.
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"People who met Victoria Roshchyna on this path describe her as a very thin, frail woman. She was 'yellow,' like 'victims of the Holodomor.' Some prisoners shared part of their food with her. They knew her by her reputation as a journalist who was arrested for 'telling the truth' and who refused food," stated an eyewitness whose name is withheld for safety reasons.
The witness added that Roshchyna explained her actions by saying, "I do not want to eat because our boys are being tortured here." By the time she arrived in Kizel, she was at the limit of her strength. She struggled to stay on her feet and frequently lost consciousness, yet the prison system continued to mistreat her.
Another witness reported that on September 18, 2024, the day before her death, Roshchyna felt unwell. She reportedly asked a guard for tea and offered to pay for it later. The guard responded by saying, "Do not say such nonsense anymore, you are not in the right place, you are not in the position to ask for anything."
The witness also mentioned that a medical worker from the prison visited her cell and gave her an unknown injection.“They were trying to revive her there, they gave her some kind of injection, it seems,” the witness said. Victoria Roshchyna died the following day.
Roshchyna was first captured by Russian forces in March 2022 and held for 10 days in Berdyansk. During 2022, she wrote several reports from territories occupied following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Her work included coverage of life in occupied Crimea, the pseudo-referendum in the Donetsk region, and a photo report from destroyed Mariupol.
To reach the occupied territories for her reporting, Roshchyna traveled from Ukraine to Poland on July 25, 2023. She planned to travel through Russia to reach eastern Ukraine within three days.
She disappeared on August 3, 2023, while reporting from Russian-occupied territory. In May 2024, Russia acknowledged her detention for the first time in a letter sent by the Russian Ministry of Defense to her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn.
Previously, it was reported that there are currently 403 Ukrainian women in Russian captivity, with many of them being illegally detained civilians.
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