The body of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died after torture in Russian captivity, was brought back to Ukraine in late February, Deputy Interior Minister Leonid Tymchenko said in an interview with Censor.net published on April 24.
“She was identified through DNA testing,” Tymchenko said.
Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while reporting from Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories, with Moscow admitting her detention the following year.
Previously, in March 2022, Roshchyna was detained for 10 days by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers while leaving Berdiansk in the direction of Mariupol. As a condition of her release, she was forced to record a video saying Russian forces had saved her life.
Ukrainian officials confirmed Roshchyna’s death on Oct. 10, 2024, but said that the circumstances were still under investigation. Russia did not hand over her body for about five months.
The Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian NGO, reported that Roshchyna had been held in at least two notorious Russian prisons: the penal colony n. 77 in Berdiansk in occupied Ukraine and the detention center n. 2 in Russia’s Taganrog.
Both facilities are known for the use of torture against prisoners. According to Russia, she died on Sept. 19.
In Russian captivity, Roshchyna was tortured with electric shocks, a Ukrainian investigative journalism outlet Slidstvo.Info reported in early March, citing an unnamed witness in the Taganrog detention center. There were also cuts on Roshchyna’s arms after interrogations, she said. The journalist lost weight and weighed up to 30 kilograms, according to the witness.
Although Roshchyna’s body is said to have been returned in late February, Ukrainian journalists said in March that her body had not yet been retrieved at the time.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, a lawmaker and chairman of the parliamentary committee on freedom of speech, said on April 24 that silence was needed because Russia often swaps bodies, and it was not certain that the journalist’s body had been returned.
“Given the torture and the condition of her body, Roshchyna’s family requested not one, but several DNA examinations,” Yurchyshyn wrote on Facebook. “As far as I know, the examinations were carried out not only in Ukraine but also abroad to ensure that it was definitely Vika.”
Journalist Viktoria Roshchyna receives posthumous human rights award
Roshchyna, who died last fall in Russian captivity, received the Homo Homini award for her “work dedicated to portraying issues threatening the democratic order of Ukraine, which she did not compromise on, even at the risk of her personal safety.”
