Ukrainian journalist dies in Russian captivity: Ukraine launches war crime and murder investigation

The press service of the Prosecutor General's Office reported the information.

"In connection with the information about the death of Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna in the Russian Federation, the criminal proceedings opened over her disappearance have been further classified as a war crime combined with premeditated murder," the statement said.

The disappearance of Victoria Roshchyna

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Viktoria Roshchyna worked for the hromadske outlet and wrote reports from the temporarily occupied territories. 

On March 7, 2022, she came across a battalion of Russian tanks that fired at her car. A week later, the Russian military detained her in the village of Vasylivka, but the journalist managed to escape.

On March 11, 2022, Roshchyna was again captured by the Russian FSB - according to her, she was captured on her way to Mariupol. She said she was held for a week in Berdiansk.

In October 2023, it became known that Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who received an award for her reporting on the war in Ukraine, disappeared in the temporarily occupied territories. Her family and friends reported that they had lost contact with her since August 3, 2023. 

In May 2024, Russia admitted that it was holding Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who disappeared in the temporarily occupied territories in August last year, in captivity.

Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who was taken prisoner by Russia, has died. Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said that he had received documentary evidence of the death of the journalist from the Russian side.