Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchina died in Russian custody, according to Kiev

(CNN)- Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchina, who disappeared into her country’s occupied territory, died in Russian custody last month, Ukrainian officials reported this week.

Roshchina, 27, disappeared in August last year while on a reporting trip to the Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine. She was missing for several months, without her loved ones knowing what happened to her.

According to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, Moscow did not inform Roshchina’s family that she was being detained in Russia until April, months after her capture.

“I have an official document from the Russian side confirming the death of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchina, who was illegally deprived of her liberty by Russia,” Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said in a statement.

CNN sought comment from Russian officials but did not receive a response.

Roshchina’s colleagues said she traveled to Russian-controlled territory to report on the lives of people living under occupation – a dangerous ordeal for any Ukrainian. They believe that the young journalist was murdered by Russian authorities.

“We have every reason to believe that her death was the result of deliberate murder or the cruel treatment and violence inflicted on her during Russian captivity,” Ukrainian journalists and media professionals said in a statement published in several magazines. Ukrainian media.

The statement said Roshchina was in good health before her one-year imprisonment.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said it was investigating his death as a war crime with premeditated murder.

Journalist Evgenia Motorevskaya, who worked with Roshchina as former editor of the Ukrainian media outlet, Hromadske, said the young reporter was determined to do her job as well as possible.

“Nothing was more important to him than journalism. Vika was always the place where the most important events for the country took place. And she did so for many years, but the Russians killed her,” he said, referring to Roshchina, in a statement posted on Hromadske’s website.

Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said in a statement that about 25 Ukrainian journalists remain in Russian captivity, and several others are considered missing.

The Ukrainian government claims that thousands of Ukrainians have been arbitrarily detained in Russia. Kiev’s human rights commissioner Lubinets said in July that 14,000 Ukrainian citizens were in Russian captivity, some of whom have been held since 2014, when war broke out in eastern Ukraine and Russia annexed Crimea.

Yatsenko said Roshchina died while being transferred to Moscow from a detention center in the southern Russian city of Taganrog, according to Russian authorities. He said the transfer was in preparation for their release as part of a prisoner exchange.

“Unfortunately, we did not have enough time,” he said in the statement.

Tetyana Katrychenko of the Ukrainian human rights group, Media Initiative for Human Rights, said the Taganrog detention center is known for its brutal treatment of detainees, according to a statement posted on her social media.

CNN previously reported on widespread torture of Ukrainian prisoners by Russian authorities.

“Taganrog… is known as one of the most brutal places of detention for Ukrainians in the Russian Federation. It’s called hell on earth,” Katrychenko said, adding that Roshchina was detained in Taganrog from at least May to September 2024. “He was kept in solitary confinement,” he said.

Roshchina was awarded the 2022 Courage Award in Journalism by the International Women’s Media Foundation. His work has appeared in various media outlets, including Ukrayinska Pravda, Hromadske, and Radio Free Europe.