Reporters Without Borders has published new evidence about the last days of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriya Roshchina, who died in September 2024 in detention center No. 3 in the city of Kizel, Perm Krai, after more than a year in Russian prisons.
This is stated in a report by Reporters Without Borders.
Witnesses told the organization that during the transfer from Taganrog to Kizel, Viktoria Roshchina was extremely exhausted, refused food in protest against the torture of Ukrainian prisoners, and often fainted. On the eve of her death, she felt very sick and allegedly asked for tea, but received only ridicule from the guards.
Witnesses reported that Roshchina arrived alive in Kizel, but she was declared dead the next day. Ukraine received the journalist's body only five months later, with traces of torture and organs removed, making a full autopsy impossible.
“Viktoria Roshchina was at the limit of her strength. And although she should have been released and provided with medical care, as her health condition had been critical for many months, the Russian authorities kept her in detention in inhuman and degrading conditions, even deliberately deciding to transfer her thousands of kilometers from Ukraine. The Russian penitentiary system bears responsibility for her death,” the statement from Reporters Without Borders reads.