(CNN) – Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who disappeared in occupied territory of her country, died in Russian custody last month, Ukrainian authorities said this week.
Roshchina, 27, disappeared in August last year during a reporting trip to the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine. She has been missing for months without her loved ones knowing what happened to her.
Moscow did not inform Roshchina’s family of her detention in Russia until April, months after her capture, according to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office.
“I have official documents from the Russian side confirming the death of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who was illegally deprived of her freedom by Russia,” Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said in a statement.
CNN reached out to Russian officials for comment but did not receive a response.
Roshchyna’s colleagues said she traveled to Russian-controlled territory — a dangerous ordeal for any Ukrainian — to report on the lives of people living under occupation. They believe the young journalist was killed by Russian authorities.
“We have every reason to believe that his death was either a deliberate murder or the result of cruel behavior and violence,” Ukrainian journalists and media experts said in a statement published in several. Ukrainian media.
The statement added that Roshchina was in good health before her one-year prison sentence.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said his death was being investigated as a war crime involving premeditated murder.
Journalist Evgenia Motorevskaya, who worked with Roshchina as a former editor of Ukrainian media Hromadske, said the young reporter was determined to do her job as well as possible.
“There was nothing more important to her than journalism. Vika was always where the most important events for the country took place. She would have continued for many years, but the Russians killed her,” he said in a statement posted on Hromatske’s website, referring to Roshchina in its small size.
Petro Yatchenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said in a statement that about 25 Ukrainian journalists were in Russian custody and many more were believed to be missing.
The Ukrainian government says thousands of Ukrainians are being arbitrarily detained in Russia. Lubinets, Kyiv’s human rights commissioner, said in July that 14,000 Ukrainian citizens were in Russian custody, some of whom had been held since war broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and Russia annexed Crimea.
Yatchenko said Roshchina died while being transferred to Moscow from a detention center in the southern Russian city of Taganrog, according to Russian officials. He said the transfer was in preparation for his release as part of a prisoner exchange.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have enough time,” he said in the statement.
Tetyana Katrychenko of the Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian human rights group, said in a statement on her social media that the Taganrog detention center was known for its brutal treatment of detainees.
CNN previously reported on the widespread torture of Ukrainian prisoners by Russian authorities.
“Daganrok… 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 until September 2024. “She was held in solitary confinement,” he added.
Roshchina was awarded Courage in Journalism 2022 by the International Women’s Media Foundation. His work has appeared in various media, including Ukrainska Pravda, Hromadske, and Radio Free Europe.
