Murdered in Prison? The Death of a Ukrainian Reporter Held in ‚Russia‘s Guantanamo' Raises Questions

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Is it officially confirmed - at this point, while we are talking right now - that Viktoria died while she was in Russian captivity?
Yes, this information has been officially confirmed by the Ukrainian authorities last week. Victoria Roshchina, who was just 27, a Ukrainian journalist, died in Russia while being transferred between two prisons. Her relatives were only notified about it in the beginning of October via a letter from the Russian Ministry of Defense, which stated that she actually died back on September 19th. This letter didn't provide any information about the circumstances of her death. So, yes, she died. That has been confirmed. But we do not know much about why she died, where exactly it happened.

We know that her father was supposed to have received this news and it seems that the Ukrainian side has confirmed this. But we don't have any detailed information about what actually happened to Victoria, how she died, why she died.
Correct, we do not know the circumstances of her death. Ukrainian law enforcement actually opened an investigation into her death and qualified it as a murder. So, the assumption by the Ukrainian authorities now is that she did not die because of natural circumstances. Not only because it's extremely unlikely that such a young woman, who was just 27, would die of natural causes. So, there are some grounds to believe that her death might have been violent, that she might have been murdered while she was transported from one Russian prison to another, or maybe in one of those prisons. So, we don't know exactly where it happened.

As you said, she was being transported from one Russian prison to another. Do we know why she was being transported? Is it connected somehow with the fact, or rather the assumption, that she was supposed to be part of a prisoner exchange?
Possibly, yes. What we know is that she was in Detention Center number 2 in Taganrog, in southern Russia. That prison is famous for very harsh and inhumane treatment of Ukrainian prisoners. Some of them even called it the Russian Guantanamo. Some of these prisoners have been released and upon their return to Ukraine they provided testimony about this extremely harsh, cruel and violent treatment that they were subjected to in that prison: torture, threats of rape and other things like that.

We know that Victoria was in that prison because Russia, for the first time since she disappeared in August 2023, confirmed this year in May that she was detained and was in this colony in Taganrog. Then what we know what happened that she was indeed put on the list of people who were to be included in the next prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia, and apparently as a preparation to this exchange, she was being transferred from Taganrog to a prison in Moscow, to Lefortovo - another prison which is notorious for holding people who are suspected of really serious charges of state treason or who are considered national security threats in Russia.

So we don't know what the charges were. Russia never disclosed any information about why Victoria was arrested or what the charges against her were, but the fact that she was being transferred from Taganrog to this Lefortovo prison indicates that she might have been charged or suspected of committing crimes against national security or charged with espionage in Russia. However, we don't really know because Russia never officially declared any charges against her. 

And let me return to the issue of prisoner exchange. This is not my information, but other Ukrainian journalists, such as editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, which is the major Ukrainian online media, Sevil Musaeva, she mentioned in an interview to BBC, that according to her sources, Victoria was to be exchanged on the 13th of September. So six days before she died, she was supposed to be exchanged, but that didn't happen. As we know now, she was not exchanged and she died before that happened.

Yeah, Mrs. Musaeva claimed that on Facebook as well, that she was meant to be exchanged in mid-September. That was my source as well. I spoke with Victoria sometime in the spring of 2022. We were supposed to have a conversation about what was going on in Ukraine. In the end, due to various obstacles the interview didn't happen. But I remember being very impressed by her courage because she traveled to places occupied by the Russian army, to report on what was going on, what was happening there. She was in Mariupol. Was this what made her stand out for you, as well, as a journalist?
Yes, absolutely. Victoria was one of the most courageous and most brave journalists that I've known, that I've ever met. We worked together at the Ukrainian Hromadske TV for about three years between 2017 and 2020. She was often the very first person to come to the office in the morning and the last person to leave in the evening. She was very committed to her work as a journalist. I think it wouldn't even be an exaggeration to say that that was her life. Journalism was her life. She was also very independent in her decisions, especially regarding the stories that she wanted to cover. She was very intolerant to injustice. So as a reporter, she covered a lot of trials, court processes, and stories related to crime. But also, even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, she was covering stories about Ukrainian prisoners taken by Russia, like Oleh Sencov, a film director who was arrested in Crimea and spent years in Russian captivity and then finally returned to Ukraine in 2019. So Victoria was there to meet him, cover what happened and tell his story - only to almost repeat his fate, in a way, but with a much more tragic outcome. She was also arrested and imprisoned in Russia a few years later.

She was really very independent. And that was manifested in her decision to go and cover what was happening on the occupied territories of Ukraine after Russia's full-scale invasion. As you rightly said, she traveled to Mariupol, she traveled to southern Ukraine, to the Zaporizhia region, to occupied parts of the Rus'on region. And it is extremely dangerous to work there for Ukrainians and for international journalists who are not affiliated with the Russian army or who are not going there to spread pro-Russian propaganda, because the only authorizations to visit and work on those territories are given to the people who are doing propaganda, not objective journalism. So Victoria literally risked her life to go and report on what is happening there.

I just recently reviewed her report from Mariupol in May 2022, that is after several months of being occupied and bombed by Russia. After thousands of its residents were killed by those bombings. Incredibly powerful reporting - photos, close-up photos of Russian soldiers, of demonstrations that Russians organized, of the bombed houses and buildings in Mariupol. So very unique testimonies that no other Ukrainian journalist made at the time and has made since then, just because it is life threatening to go and work on Russian occupied territories for independent journalists.

Then, unfortunately, after one of her trips to the occupied territories, in March 2022, she was detained for 10 days by Russians. She was released after being forced to record a video, basically thanking the Russians for being so kind to her. So they released her, but then she was arrested again because she decided to go again to the occupied territories, despite the pleas of her editors who tried to convince her not to go. But as I said, she was so committed to journalism, she thought it was her duty. She was very independent in her decision making. She decided to go there again and she was arrested again in August 2023.

She was brave. And she was rightfully stubborn, I would say.  She disappeared again in 2023. According to her father, she set off from Ukraine to Poland on July 27th and was expected to reach Russian-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine three days later. But she was reported missing on August 12th. Do we know how she ended up in Russian captivity last year?
I don't have any of this information. And I think very little of that is publicly known. It is partially given by the circumstances of work in the occupied territories. It is just impossible to independently, freely communicate with people who are in the occupied territories. Since Victoria was also undertaking these trips independently, without coordination with editors or other colleagues, I'm afraid we really don't know much about her movements and whereabouts and what exactly happened there.

But you said that she was then held in Taganrog, the prison notorious for its brutality. Do we know what happened to her in Russia or do we still not have any information about that?
We have that gap in knowledge between August 2023 and May 2024, when Russia confirmed that she was detained and she was held in this prison in Taganrog. So we don't really know what happened between August and May, where she was, where exactly she was arrested. Was she immediately put into this prison in Taganrog? Or maybe she was held on the Ukrainian territory that is currently under Russian occupation, which is very likely and she might have been moved several times from one prison to another. Because that's usually what happens to Ukrainian prisoners, to Ukrainian civilian prisoners, that Russians are taking. There are now tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian prisoners in Russian detention.

So as I said, only in May this year did Russia confirm that she was in Taganrog. What is also in the public domain is that her father was in touch with her at the end of August this year - so about a month and a half ago. She told him that she was about to start a hunger strike and that she was disagreeing with conditions of her detention. Reportedly, he dissuaded her from doing that and convinced her not to go on a hunger strike. That was their last communication at the end of August. Then it was reported by the media that another Ukrainian citizen who was released from Taganrog last month told Victoria's family that she saw her on the 8th or 9th of September - less than 10 days before her death. So we only have these little snippets of information from which it is very difficult to establish a clear picture of what was happening to Victoria. We don't know what charges were pressed against her. We don't know exactly where she was detained. And ultimately, we don't know what happened to cause her death.

Maybe some investigation will clear this up.
Well, of course, there is hope. And as I said, Ukrainian law enforcement started a case and they suspect that Victoria was murdered. But I'm not sure how much information it will be possible to obtain in regard to this case, because access to information is held by the Russian authorities. And they are not going to disclose any information that could have a negative impact on them. If Victoria was indeed tortured, if the conditions of her detention were cruel, which was the case with other Ukrainian prisoners detained in Russia, which is the case currently with, you know, tens of thousands of Ukrainians who are in Russia, then the Russians will be extremely reluctant to confirm that.

Also, if she was indeed murdered and she did not die of natural causes, which seems to be the case, I do not think we can expect any information to confirm that coming from Russian authorities. I don't know. I would like to hope that perhaps Russian opposition journalists who are abroad could use their connections in the Russian system to get that information, to report on that. But I'm afraid that for Ukrainian journalists, it will be very difficult to establish and investigate this story, because it happened on Russian territory and Russians will not share this information with Ukrainians.

You mentioned it is hard work to go to russian occupied territory to report, to do journalism, to spend some time there to witness things. How many other journalist do we know have ended up in Russian captivity since the full-scale invasion started in February 2022?
Saying it's hard to work there is an understatement. It's impossible. It's life threatening to work as a journalist in territories of Ukraine that are occupied by Russia. Just citizens who do not even necessarily show any disobedience to the Russian occupiers, just Ukrainian citizens in these territories, face huge risks just by being there and living under Russian occupation.

We know of numerous stories of people being arbitrarily detained and put into prisons and prosecuted for absolutely innocent things: for speaking Ukrainian, for having the Ukrainian flag in their apartments. Russians conduct raids. They break into people's apartments without warning. And they look for any signs of loyalty to Ukraine. But it can happen even without any reason. So there is the atmosphere of intimidation and fear.

So it is impossible. I want to stress it's really impossible for any independent journalist to work on Russian occupied territories of Ukraine. Russians only allow access to these territories to people who are doing pro-Russian propaganda. The only people who are allowed to Mariupol or to Russian occupied territories of southern Ukraine, were not journalists. No journalists of any reputable organizations were allowed access there. I really want to stress this point. It's not difficult. It is impossible to work there for journalists.

When it comes to the number of Ukrainian journalists who are currently in Russian prisons, the latest data from the Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information states that 29 civilian Ukrainian journalists are currently imprisoned in Russia. There are also three journalists who joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion and were taken as prisoners of war. Some of these are actually people that I personally know, my ex-colleagues. 

For example, Maksim Butkevich, who was a journalist and human rights activist. He joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2022 after the full-scale invasion. He was arrested by Russia. We know that he's been kept in the occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine. He's been charged by the Russians with espionage and with targeting the civilian population there as a soldier, as a combatant of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But these are manufactured charges. These charges are completely made up and Maksim has been in Russian captivity for nearly two years. And there is currently absolutely no clarity on when and whether he's going to be exchanged.

Of course, the news about Victoria Roshina and her death, really makes everyone who knows Maksim very, very worried about his future and about his safety in a Russian prison.

I just want to add a little footnote to what you said about Victoria Roshina’s work in the Russian occupied territories. Due to the impossibility of reporting from those regions, she did so in disguise. That was an important part of her job that I wanted to point out. How much public attention is there regarding her death in Ukrainian society?
Yes, she did it. But she paid a very high price for it. So yes, in theory, you could go there at your own risk. No Ukrainian media or editor will allow their journalists to go to the Russian occupied territory because of these extremely high risks to journalists there.

You could, of course, defy those risks and just go there. But it is very likely that your end will be similar to what happened to Victoria, unfortunately. At least to prison. And then in the worst scenario, death. So I just want to make that very clear.

And regarding the public attention…?
Regarding the public attention, I think there is considerable attention in Ukraine to this. I think the entire journalistic community was very shaken and really hit hard by this news. Many people knew Victoria. Many people respected what she did. Many people were hoping that she would eventually be released and return to Ukraine safe and sound. She was very young. She was very passionate, very committed. She was respected by so many people.

In general, I think her death and this case attracted attention to the fact that there are so many Ukrainian civilians that are still in Russian captivity. So many, like Victoria, were just detained without any charges. Many of them are being locked up in Russian prisons, treated in the most violent and cruel way. They are facing torture, rape, beatings and sleep and food deprivation. People who are returning, and only a few thousand have returned, are telling terrible stories about the treatment that they have been subjected to. So I think this tragic death of Victoria Roshchina, it shook the journalistic community, but it also shook the wider public in Ukraine and attracted attention to the issue of Ukrainian prisoners in Russian detention, of Ukrainian civilians imprisoned in Russia.

President Zelensky even mentioned this during his last week's visits to several European countries. For example, he met with Pope Francis in the Vatican and he mentioned the death of Victoria and he mentioned that Ukraine would really expect some participation and help from the Vatican in facilitating these prisoner exchanges. Relative to the number of people who were imprisoned in Russian captivity, very few were exchanged and able to return to Ukraine.