Declared dead by Russia: RSF reveals the brutal reality of Victoria Roshchyna’s last months in captivity

“I'm not afraid of challenges. I will find a way out.” These words, written in June 2023 by Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna in her application for a grant from the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), sound like an epitaph today. A freelance reporter and regular contributor to the independent online media Ukrayinska Pravda, she arrived in occupied southern Ukraine as planned, venturing into the heart of the war to interview victims of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was a risky project, which she knew would be perilous. A year earlier, she had been arrested in southern Ukraine and held for days by the FSB, the Russian intelligence services.

Now, chances are slim to none that her promise to return will be kept. After months of silence and lies about her fate — a frequent tactic used by Russia to terrify Ukrainian civilians by leaving them in the dark about the fate and whereabouts of their imprisoned loved ones, — Russian authorities finally acknowledged her detention in April 2024 before announcing her death, which allegedly occurred on 19 September 2024, according to a letter addressed to her family written. The cold, blunt four lines of the letter came after months of fruitless research by her family and friends and provided no real explanation of what happened.

Russia's official communications — deliberately opaque, sometimes unrelated to the facts, and often blatantly misleading — rarely provide credible information on the fate or whereabouts of the scores of Ukrainian civilians who have been arbitrarily detained, at least 19 of whom are journalists currently behind Russian bars. To shed light on the many unknown factors surrounding the disappearance of Victoria Roshchyna, RSF and three Ukrainian media — investigative website Slidstvo.info, public broadcasting group Suspilne and Graty, an outlet that specialises in legal matters — investigated the final months of her captivity. We gathered multiple eyewitness accounts, which attest to the extremely dangerous physical and psychological conditions inflicted on the 27-year-old journalist, the ill-treatment she suffered and the lack of care that ultimately led to her presumed death.

From the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia’s Taganrog Prison

After managing to reach the occupied Ukrainian territories via Russia — an impressive feat — Victoria Roshchyna was rapidly arrested in Enerhodar, a city near the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, at the beginning of August 2024. The exact circumstances of her arrest remain unclear. She was “spotted by a drone,” according to the main witness in this investigation, who spent several months alongside the journalist in Russian jail. Held for several weeks in an unknown location in Melitopol, a nearby Ukrainian city also under Russian occupation, she was transferred at the end of December 2023 to Taganrog, a city in southwest Russia with a prison infamous for its transformation into a torture camp for Ukrainians.

Several testimonies gathered by RSF during this investigation detailed the atrocious conditions of Taganrog. One Ukrainian soldier described being beaten, given electric shocks “so strong that some lose consciousness,” deprived of food and kept in a freezing cell where the window was deliberately removed to expose the prisoners to the rain and freezing air of the long winter months. One civilian recounts the regular threats of rape and the beatings against on those who asked to see a doctor. “The place is hell,” said another RSF source. 

Evacuated on a stretcher

When Victoria Roshchyna was admitted in December 2023, she had scars and gashes on her body from her detention in a makeshift prison in Melitopol. Some of the wounds were recent. In the first few weeks, she asked to speak with Taganrog staff to no avail. She seemed agitated. When a local delegation from the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation visited the prison in March 2024, she was removed from her cell and held apart, no doubt to prevent the commissioner from asking questions. From then on, her condition gradually deteriorated. One witness described a particularly trying day when the journalist was visibly experiencing “a panic attack.”

She gradually stopped eating. The guards threatened her, put pressure on her fellow inmates and tried to force-feed her. “Look, it looks like she's eaten her cheeks,” one of them mocked her one day, adding humiliation to the physical abuse. Her condition deteriorated and the prison administration refused to give her medication despite her repeated requests. It was not until June that the journalist finally saw a doctor for the first time. It was already very late: Victoria Roshchyna no longer had enough strength to lift her head from her pillow. According to one witness, she only weighed around thirty kilos when she was finally evacuated on a stretcher later that month, presumably to a city hospital. At this point, the other detainees believed she was dead, another key witness told RSF.

After a few weeks, the reporter finally returned to Taganrog prison, descending back into hell. The journalist was placed in solitary confinement but appeared to be in better condition, according to several corroborating accounts. She walked unassisted and responded to calls from the guards, who, tasked with checking that she was eating, frequently told her, “Come here, we can't see you eat.” At the end of August, she managed to make a brief call to her family. On 8 September, she was seen for the last time in the prison. On 19 September, she was declared dead by the Russian authorities. 

Was she transferred out between 8 and 19 September? If so, to where? What happened during this period? None of the RSF witnesses interviewed for this investigation were able to answer these questions. If the journalist died, as Russia claims, why has her body not been returned almost six months after her death? The requests for explanations RSF has sent to the Russian Ministry of Defence have gone unanswered. Victoria Roshchyna may not have been able to return from reporting, but we will continue to search for the truth. The investigation continues.

Each of the three Ukrainian media that partnered with RSF in this report published their own investigation into Victoria Roshchyna, available on Slidstvo.info, Graty and Suspilne. 

All RSF sources in this investigation have been made anonymous for security reasons.