Ukraine lodges war crime probe over killing of journalist Victoria Roshchyna in Russian captivity

The war crimes investigation is under Article 438 § 2 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code).  Russia had illegally abducted Victoria while she was trying to carry out journalist work in occupied Ukraine and had been holding her prisoner in Russia.  They bear direct responsibility for the death of the 27-year-old who was in perfectly good health.  She appears to have been killed while being moved to a prison in Moscow where Ukraine was hoping she would be part of an exchange of prisoners.

It was learned on 10 October that Victoria Roshchyna had died in a Russian prison 14 months after she was seized by the Russians in occupied Ukraine.  It was only in April 2024 that Russia admitted to holding her, and they have not provided any information as to how she died in their custody.  Victoria was just 27 and there was nothing to suggest health issues.  Nothing except the fact that she was a Ukrainian journalist seized and illegally held prisoner by the country whose aggression against Ukraine she had openly condemned.

The news of Victoria’s death was confirmed on 10 October by Petro Yatsenko from Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters.  They are trying to find out the circumstances around her death and promise that those responsible will be held to answer.  Yatsenko stresses that such crimes cannot be subject to any time bar.  

According to Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Military Intelligence, Russia has not provided any formal confirmation of Victoria’s death, although there does not, unfortunately, appear to be any doubt.  Yusov explains that negotiations had been underway to ensure the journalist’s release.  It was believed that this had been agreed and that she had been moved from the prison in Tagenrog to Lefortovo prison in Moscow in preparation for her release.

In fact, Graty has since reported that Russia’s defence ministry have confirmed Victoria’s death in response to a letter from her father on 28 August 2024.  Typically, the defence ministry letter was dated 2 October, but only sent by email on 10 October.   The short letter states that the journalist died on 19 September 2024 and that her body will be returned “to the Ukrainian side as part of an exchange of bodies of detained persons”.  No information is provided about the circumstances or cause of her death.

As reported, Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists stated on 27 May 2024 that Victoria’s father had received confirmation from Russia’s defence ministry that his daughter was in their custody.  The Russian letter informed only that Roshchyna (b. 1996) had been “detained and is currently on the territory of the Russian Federation”.  There was nothing to indicate why she had been “detained”, and what, if any, charges had been formally laid.  The letter, dated 17 April, was in response to a formal request for information from Victoria’s father.  He received it around 22 April and contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] who managed to confirm that Victoria was indeed held prisoner in Russia, but nothing more.  Russia is violating international law both in abducting and in holding civilians hostage.  It regularly blocks access to ICRC and other international monitors, with ICRC, unfortunately, considering silence about this to fall within its policy of neutrality.

Victoria Roshchyna earlier worked for Hromadske.ua, and then regularly published on Ukrainska Pravda and Radio Svoboda (RFE/RL).  She was first seized by the Russians on 11 or 12 March 2022 after arriving in occupied Berdiansk.  From the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she had provided invaluable reports about the situation in the areas under Russian attack and had just published a report for Hromadske on Enerhodar, the city linked with the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, whose residents had tried desperately to stop Russia’s invasion.  The journalist was held then for ten days but released on 21 March and able to get to Zaporizhzhia. 

On 25 July 2023, Victoria set off from Ukraine to Poland, so as to get to occupied Ukraine via Russia and try to find out on the ground what was happening.  She was abducted from occupied territory on 3 August 2023.

The Russians would have been well aware of the young journalist’s attitude to their full-scale invasion of her country.  On 8 March 2022, she had posted a report on Facebook which began with the words “I will never forgive Russia”, and described passing two gutted cars, with the second, it transpired, still with the charred body of a man from the village. She and her driver had only escaped from a column of Russian tanks thanks to local residents who had helped them to hide.  Their car, however, which was clearly marked with a PRESS sign, was ransacked, with her laptop, video camera, rucksack and the driver’s cigarettes stolen.  She ended with the following words:

“I went to the regions to describe what is happening there and what the people are thinking who are all the time without communications, under the fire of machine guns, grad missiles and the roar of Russian tanks.

In small villages and cities, the occupiers feel like ‘heroes’ – they shoot at civilians living there, they set fire to their cars, kill and loot.  They are turning the life of people into hell, traumatizing children. They took my technology, but they will not take away my wish to tell the truth about their crimes.

This time, it will probably be a miracle that saves me.

But I will never forgive Russia.

Never.

They will burn in hell and will definitely go on trial.”

Danielle Bell, Head of the OHCHR Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, reported in early August 2024 that Russia subjects over 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war to torture, and called such torture the worst she had seen in her twenty years of monitoring places of confinement.  The last OHCHR report also detailed the “systematic and widespread” nature of such torture. 

The UN monitors talk mainly about prisoners of war as these are generally the only Ukrainian prisoners whom Russia releases.  It is, however, holding huge numbers of civilians hostage, and there are no grounds for believing that its treatment of such civilians, including women, is any better.

There can be no forgiveness.

Вічна пам’ять    Eternal Memory