Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who went lacking in an occupied a part of her nation, died in Russian detention final month, Ukrainian authorities stated earlier this week.
Roshchyna, who was 27, disappeared in August final 12 months throughout a reporting journey to a Russian-occupied space in Ukraine. She was lacking for months, together with her family members having no concept what occurred to her.
In accordance with the Workplace of the Ukrainian Prosecutor Common, Moscow solely knowledgeable Roshchyna’s household she was detained in Russia in April, months after she was captured.
“I’ve official documentation from the Russian facet confirming the demise of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who was illegally disadvantaged of her liberty by Russia,” Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, stated in a press release.
CNN has requested Russian authorities for remark, however acquired no reply.
Roshchyna’s colleagues stated she travelled to the Russian-held territory – a harmful ordeal for any Ukrainian – to report on the lives of individuals residing beneath occupation. They stated they believed the younger journalist was killed by Russian authorities.
“We’ve got each motive to consider that her demise was both the results of a deliberate homicide or the results of the merciless remedy and violence to which she was subjected throughout her time in Russian captivity,” Ukrainian journalists and media professionals stated in a press release revealed in a number of Ukrainian media shops.
The assertion added that Roshchyna was wholesome earlier than her yearlong imprisonment.
The Workplace of the Ukrainian Prosecutor Common stated it was investigating her demise as a battle crime mixed with premeditated homicide.
Journalist Evgeniya Motorevskaya, who labored with Roshchyna as the previous editor of Hromadske, a Ukrainian media outlet, stated the younger reporter was decided to do her job as greatest as she may.
“For her, there was nothing extra essential than journalism. Vika was all the time the place an important occasions for the nation befell. And she or he would have continued to do that for a few years, however the Russians killed her,” she stated in a press release revealed on Hromadske’s web site, referring to Roshchyna by her diminutive.
Petro Yatsenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Coordination Middle for the Remedy of Prisoners of Struggle, stated in a press release that some 25 Ukrainian journalists have been being held in Russian captivity, and several other others are thought-about lacking.
The Ukrainian authorities says 1000’s of Ukrainians have been held in arbitrary detention in Russia. Lubinets, Kyiv’s human rights commissioner, stated in July that 14,000 Ukrainian civilians have been in Russian captivity, a few of whom have been held since 2014 when the battle broke out in japanese Ukraine and Russia annexed Crimea.
Yatsenko stated that in keeping with Russian authorities, Roshchyna died whereas being transferred from a detention facility within the southern Russian metropolis of Taganrog to Moscow. He stated the switch was in preparation for her launch as a part of a prisoner alternate.
“Sadly, we didn’t have sufficient time,” he stated within the assertion.
Tetyana Katrychenko from the Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian rights group, stated the detention facility in Taganrog was recognized for its merciless remedy of detainees, in keeping with a press release revealed on her social media.
CNN has beforehand reported on the widespread torture of Ukrainian prisoners by Russian authorities.
“Taganrog … is named probably the most brutal locations of detention for Ukrainians within the Russian Federation. It’s referred to as hell on earth,” Katrychenko stated, including that Roshchyna was held in Taganrog from at the very least Might to September 2024. “She was held in solitary confinement,” she added.
Roshchyna was awarded the 2022 Braveness in Journalism Award by the Worldwide Girls’s Media Basis. Her work appeared in a variety of media shops together with Ukrayinska Pravda, Hromadske and Radio Free Europe.
