The body of Viktoria Roshchina was returned with signs of autopsy. What did the journalist go through in Russian captivity? Investigation by UP
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An international investigation by the Viktoriia Project has uncovered a large-scale torture system that a Ukrainian journalist went through.
“I have to. I have to tell them," — Viktoria Roshchina replied to her father after her first capture. She went back. And never returned.
In April 2025, the world learned of the extent of the cruelty endured by Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchina in Russian captivity. An international journalistic investigation, the Viktoriia Project, initiated by Forbidden Stories in collaboration with The Guardian, Le Monde, Die Zeit, ZDF, Ukrainska Pravda, and others, has reconstructed the last months of Viktoria's life and the scale of repression against Ukrainian civilians in Russian captivity.
Journalists tried to establish the circumstances under which Viktoria was captured, in which prisons she was held, and how long she was detained. This is also a story about the hell and trials that Ukrainian civilians have to endure in Russian-occupied territories and in Russian captivity.
Death without truth
A journalist disappeared in the occupied territory in August 2023. Her family did not receive any reliable information for over a year. Only in April 2024 did Russia officially confirm that Viktoria was being held captive. In October 2024, the Russian side reported her death. In February 2025, Ukraine received Viktoria's body — numbered 757 and mistakenly identified as an “unidentified male.”
“Due to mummification and the absence of the brain, eyes, and part of the trachea, it is impossible to establish the exact cause of death," explained Yuriy Belousov, head of the War Department of the Prosecutor General's Office, to journalists.
According to him, the body showed signs of abrasions, hemorrhages, broken ribs, and possible traces of electric shock.
“These injuries were inflicted while she was alive. There is a high probability that she was tortured,” Belousov said.
The investigative team conducting the investigation confirmed to Viktoriia Project that the body was brought to Ukraine with signs of an autopsy performed in Russia. Viktoriia Project also learned from its sources in law enforcement agencies that some internal organs were missing, including the brain, eyeballs, and part of the trachea.
An international forensic expert interviewed by journalists believes that the absence of these organs may indicate that the Russians tried to hide the fact that death was caused by suffocation.
From Enerhodar to the “garages” in Melitopol
During the full-scale invasion, Viktoria Roshchina made at least four trips to the occupied territories. Viktoria was first detained in 2022 near Berdiansk. She spent 11 days in captivity but returned to work and deliberately went back to the occupied territory.
“During the war, she came to our house and brought with her a battered helmet and body armor that weighed about 15 kilograms, I think, and her personal belongings. And then she said, 'I'm leaving.' I said, 'Daughter, stay,' — that was after her first capture. And she said, 'I have to'. How could I stop her? When she sets her mind on something, she'll do it," says Viktoria's father, Volodymyr Roshchin.
Her last route ran from Ukraine through Latvia to Russia, then to Melitopol, and later to Energodar. According to eyewitnesses, she was detained there after a drone flight — presumably a targeted special operation. She was held at the police station at 17 Budivelnykiv Avenue, a place that had been turned into an FSB torture chamber.
Investigators spoke with two people who were also held at this address in 2022 and 2023. Both were severely beaten and tortured with electricity. They said that she was tortured with electric shocks through her ears, beaten, and threatened with sexual violence.
It is likely that Viktoria Roshchina also experienced this type of electric shock torture. Her cellmate recalls that the journalist told her how they connected electricity to her ears:
“I know that she was tortured with electricity (tortured — UP) more than once. She didn't say how many times, but she said she was covered in bruises".
Torture chamber in Melitopol
Later, Victoria was transferred to an unofficial prison and torture center in Melitopol, known as “the garages.” There, she was held in dark concrete rooms without windows, where prisoners were beaten, suspended, tied up, deprived of sleep and light. A man who was held there recounts:
“After being tortured with electricity, I couldn't walk. They carried me back to my cell.”
Taganrog: isolation, starvation, and death
Viktoria Roshchina remained in Melitopol until the end of 2023, and in early 2024, she was transferred along with several other prisoners to SIZO No. 2, a place where neither lawyers, the Red Cross, nor the UN are allowed to visit.
The journalist's father appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross. They confirmed that Viktoria was in captivity, but there was no access to her. The Russian side has not brought any official charges against her. Human rights defenders refer to such prisoners as prisoners with “incommunicado” status because Russia is holding them without official charges, they are deprived of the opportunity to correspond with their relatives, they cannot have a lawyer, and most importantly, such people cannot be “counted.”
“The official prison system in Russia does not even know how many civilian hostages it holds, as most people are held in unofficial torture chambers without being registered or their information being passed on to the official authorities. In this incommunicado status, people in torture chambers in the occupied territories or in Russia are effectively left alone, completely unprotected from the cruel treatment and torture that not everyone can endure,” says human rights activist Lyudmila Yankina.
Journalists learn about what is happening behind the walls of Russian prisons from those whom Ukraine has been able to return.
The Russians use dozens of types and forms of torture. It starts with the beating of prisoners during the so-called reception (when Ukrainians are first brought to the detention center and thrown out of police vans) and ends with starvation and the screams of people being beaten in neighboring cells.
And Viktoria found herself in this place.
In Taganrog, Victoria was placed in complete isolation. She went on hunger strike, presumably in an attempt to be transferred to a hospital or included in the exchange lists. She last spoke to her father on the phone in August. He urged her to eat, and she promised she would.
“A witness (who saw Victoria in Taganrog) told me that they fed them rotten potatoes there. The witness didn't eat that food for the first three months. It was impossible to eat. But then she started eating everything in order to survive. Vika couldn't eat it either. She began to lose weight rapidly due to malnutrition. The witness said that at one point the guards forced Vika to eat,” Roshchina's father told reporters in an interview.
She was supposed to be exchanged in September 2024, but this did not happen. Although the girl was taken out of the cell and prepared for a long journey back to Ukraine. A prisoner in Taganrog, with whom we managed to talk, was one of the last people to see her alive.
“We asked a girl from the cell to help her get down. With her help, she got down. After that, a guard came and said that the journalist had not been exchanged. He added: 'She is to blame for this'," said one of the last people to see Viktoria alive.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, Viktoria Roshchina died during her transfer.
Torture as policy
The Viktoriia Project confirms that torture is state policy in Russia. Hundreds of Ukrainians, both civilians and military personnel, are being held in the same conditions, in secret and official prisons, under the supervision of special forces and the FSB.
In Taganrog's SIZO No. 2 alone, where Viktoria Roshchina was held, at least 15 Ukrainians have died as a result of torture and harsh conditions.
As of April 2025, there were 186 places where Ukrainians were being held, with torture occurring regularly in at least 29 of them.
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