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November 17, 2025 – Ukraine/Russia –
In a haunting reaffirmation of the cost of bearing truth in wartime, the family and colleagues of Ukrainian freelance journalist Viktoria Roshchyna are pressing for justice after she died in Russian captivity under torture-laden circumstances.
Roshchyna, 27, vanished in August 2023 while reporting from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine. Her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn, said he lost contact after 15 August and filed a missing-person report shortly thereafter. Eight months later, a letter from the Russian defence ministry confirmed she was in detention, and in April 2024, he briefly spoke with her via phone when her captors urged him to talk her out of a hunger strike.
When Russia handed over over 750 bodies in February 2025, one appeared in a white body bag labelled “unidentified male 757.” But a tiny tag inside bore the marking “Roshchyna, V.V.” DNA tests and forensic examination confirmed the body to be hers. Her remains were described as heavily mutilated: missing eyes, brain, trachea, and other internal organs, weighing only about 30 kg, prompting her former editor to say: “They were trying to erase the evidence.”
Investigations by Ukrainian colleagues and human-rights groups uncovered that during her detention, Roshchyna was moved between multiple prisons in Russia, in facilities notorious for torture and mistreatment. Cellmates told of her being stabbed and electrocuted, and of the appalling conditions she endured. In the months following her disappearance, Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office opened an investigation into her death as a potential war crime.
Her colleagues at Ukrainska Pravda described Roshchyna as “the bravest journalist I’ve ever met in my entire career.” She chose to report from occupied territories despite repeated warnings of the danger. “It was her mission,” the editor said.
At her funeral in Kyiv earlier this year, her family pledged that her name would not be forgotten and that those responsible for her death in captivity would be held accountable. Now, award-winners including the International Press Institute are seeking answers for “the urgent plight of the more than 20 journalists believed to remain unjustly imprisoned in Russia.”
Her father held a simple message: “Her name is a symbol of strength, resilience, and bravery.”
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