Photo: Stas Jurtschenko / Graty
Ukrainian outlet Slidstvo.Info has published an investigation into the death of journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who was captured by Russian forces in 2023. According to the report, before her death in September 2024, Roshchyna was held in Pretrial Detention Center No. 3 in the city of Kizel in Russia’s Perm Region.
It was previously known that Roshchyna had first been kept in illegal prisons in occupied Enerhodar and Melitopol, and that after that she was transferred to Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 in Taganrog, a Russian city in the Rostov Region, which borders Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Roshchyna died on Sept. 19, 2024, at the age of 27.
Slidstvo.Info said that eight days before her death, Roshchyna had been moved to the Kizel detention center. This information was also confirmed by a source for the independent Russian outlet Mediazona.
Reporters spoke with Ukrainian soldier Danylo, who encountered Roshchyna while in captivity in Taganrog. He returned to Ukraine in 2025 as part of a prisoner exchange. Between Sept. 9 and Sept. 11, 2024, both he and Roshchyna were transferred from Taganrog to Kizel.
The soldier said Roshchyna looked emaciated and exhausted on the train. Upon arrival in Kizel, he said, prisoners were beaten. “For an hour or two I was beaten, continuously. They gave me a minute to breathe and then started again. During the intake I lost consciousness twice. Women were shaved bald; you could hear them crying,” Danylo said.
Slidstvo.Info reported that it obtained a copy of Roshchyna’s death certificate “from closed Russian databases.” It was issued by the Lenin District civil registry office in Perm, listing Sept. 19, 2024, as the date of death. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office also confirmed that date.
Roshchyna disappeared in August 2023 while preparing a report from occupied Enerhodar. Russian authorities only acknowledged that she was in their captivity in May 2024, in response to an inquiry from her father. Reports indicated she was to be included in a prisoner exchange. Roshchyna began a hunger strike shortly before her death, which was confirmed by Ukrainian authorities on Oct. 10, 2024. Her body was returned to Ukraine bearing signs of torture and missing some internal organs.