Family, friends, and colleagues held a farewell ceremony in Kyiv on August 8 for Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who went missing in Russian-occupied territories before being confirmed dead while in Russian captivity, where she appeared to have been tortured.
Roshchyna, a 27-year-old freelance journalist who had previously worked with RFE/RL and other prominent Ukrainian media outlets, went missing in early August 2023. A year later, she called her family from Russian custody, the only time they heard from their daughter after her disappearance.
It wasn’t until October 2024 that her death was confirmed by Petro Yatsenko, a representative of Ukraine’s Coordination Staff for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, following an investigation into her disappearance.
“Viktoria, as a person, as a journalist, as a colleague, was someone to whom it was important to do what no one else could or even wanted to do,” Taras Ilkiv, chief digital editor for RFE/RL’s Ukrainian bureau, said during the ceremony in Kyiv.
Roshchyna had traveled from Ukraine to Poland on July 27, 2023, before heading toward the Russian-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine, according to her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn.
He said Russia’s Defense Ministry informed him in May 2024 that his daughter had been detained and was on the territory of the Russian Federation, but gave no reason for why she was being held.
Her last known communication was on August 3, 2023, and in October 2024, Roshchyn was told by Russian authorities that his daughter had died a month earlier.
Again, no details were given, but on February 14 this year a body numbered 757 and marked by Russian documents as an “unidentified male” was handed over to Ukraine.
Pathologists quickly determined the body was actually that of a female. An examination conducted by investigators from the Prosecutor General’s Office revealed a 99 percent accurate match with Roshchyna’s DNA.
The Russian document also contained the designation “SPAS,” which is used to denote the “total failure of the arteries of the heart.”
Analysts say the SPAS designation was likely an attempt by Russian authorities to conceal evidence of torture and strangulation that Roshchyna endured.
Yuriy Belousov, head of the Department for Combating Crimes Committed in Armed Conflict at Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, told RFE/RL’s News of Azov service that while it’s “extremely difficult” to establish bodily harm when a body is returned in the condition Roshchyna’s was, experts were still able to conclusively determine “evidence that Viktoria was definitely abused.”
Undercover In Ukraine’s Occupied Kherson: ‘You Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow’
Kherson is the only Ukrainian provincial capital to have fallen during Moscow’s invasion of its western neighbor. Earlier this month, RFE/RL reporter Viktoria Roshchyna traveled undercover to the city and nearby settlements to speak with people who are living under Russian occupation and to discuss the problems they face.
He adds, however, that given the condition the body was in when it was returned, “it will be extremely difficult to establish the cause using forensic medical examinations, ” making it even more important to establish the facts around Roshchyna’s disappearance and incarceration to pursue those responsible.
“All these circumstances are currently being clarified. And all those people who were involved in this, they are all clearly in the focus of our attention. Therefore, in fact, our task is to identify them and try to bring them to justice either in absentia or in person, if they fall into our hands or into the hands of our colleagues abroad,” Belousov said.
Roshchyna’s case highlights the dangers faced by journalists reporting in war zones.
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), some 29 Ukrainian journalists were in Russian detention as of June, “some for nearly a decade, often held thousands of kilometers from their families and subjected to inhumane treatment.”
