Ukraine returns body of Victoria Roshchyna, journalist who died in Russian captivity

Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Leonid Tymchenko stated this in an interview with Censor.NET.

"Her body was returned as part of a recent repatriation at the end of February this year. Her identity was confirmed through DNA testing," he said.

Note: Victoria Roshchyna had been in journalism since the age of 16. She specialized in topics related to crime, human rights, and the judicial system. She wrote for several Ukrainian media outlets, including Hromadske and Ukrainska Pravda.

Death of Victoria Roschyna: what is known

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Victoria 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. She said that she was held for a week in Berdiansk.

In October 2023, it became known that Ukrainian journalist Victoria 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 Victoria Roshchyna, who disappeared in the temporarily occupied territories in August last year, captive. On October 10, it became known that Roshchyna had died. Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said that he had received documentary evidence of the journalist's death from the Russian side.

The Prosecutor General's Office opened a war crime proceeding combined with premeditated murder. According to human rights activists, journalist Roshchyna was held in a pre-trial detention center known for the most brutal torture.

On October 11, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine reclassified the criminal proceedings into a war crime combined with premeditated murder.

Members of the European Parliament are demanding an immediate independent investigation to clarify all the circumstances of the media worker's death in Russian captivity.

On March 3, journalists found out that Roshchyna had been brutally tortured in Russian captivity, with stab wounds on her body.