Ukraine opens investigation into ‘war crimes’ following the death of a reporter

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Ukrainian prosecutors said Friday they would investigate the death of a Ukrainian journalist in Russian detention as a war crime.

Victoria Roshchyna, who would have turned 28 this month, disappeared in August last year after traveling to Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine on a reporting trip.

She remained missing until April 2024, when her father received a letter from Moscow’s Defense Ministry saying she was in Russian detention, Ukraine’s main journalists’ union said.

The circumstances of her arrest were not made public and it was not clear where in Russia she was being held.

Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Prisoner of War Coordination Headquarters, confirmed Thursday that she had died in detention.

“In connection with the information about the death of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna in Russia, the criminal proceedings opened over her disappearance have been reclassified as a war crime in combination with premeditated murder,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said Friday.

“For many Ukrainian journalists who knew Victoria, her death is a real blow,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday.

“And there are still many other journalists, public figures, community leaders from occupied territory and even ordinary people captured during the Russian occupation in Russian captivity,” he added.

The European Union said it was “shocked” by the news and demanded “a thorough and independent investigation that will clarify all the circumstances surrounding her death,” said Peter Stano, the bloc’s foreign affairs spokesman.

“Her fate is a tragic reminder of the many thousands of people detained in the occupied Ukrainian territories and Russia, and of the repression imposed by the Russian authorities, including in Russia,” Stano said in a statement on Friday.

Press rights group Reporters Without Borders said on social media it was “shocked” by Roshchyna’s death and offered its condolences to her relatives.

Russian news outlet Mediazona reported that she died while being transferred to Moscow from a prison in Taganrog, near the Ukrainian border.

Thousands of Ukrainians opposed to Moscow’s rule have been detained in occupied territories since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022. Many of them are being tortured by security forces, according to rights groups.

Ukraine said in May that more than 20 Ukrainian media officials were being held in Russian captivity and negotiations for their return were underway.

Roshchyna worked as a freelancer for several independent news media, including Ukrainska Pravda, and had collaborated with the Ukrainian service of the US-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe.

In 2022, she received the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism award for her reporting from eastern Ukraine.

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