Ukraine pushes for accountability after journalist Viktoria Roshchyna’s death in Russian captivity

The family of journalist Viktoria Roshchyna has received information about when her body might be returned to Ukraine, said Ukrainian deputy Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, reports a correspondent from Ukrinform.

On 3 August 2023, Roshchyna went missing during a trip to Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine. A month earlier, the journalist went from Ukraine to Poland and was supposed to reach the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine via Russia within three days.

In 2024, Russia confirmed for the first time that it was illegally holding Roshchyna.

On 10 October, the head of the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Freedom of Speech, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, announced that Viktoria’s father received a notification of his daughter’s death, which occurred on 19 September.

According to official information from Russian authorities, her death happened during a transfer from a Taganrog to a Moscow detention facility.

Yurchyshyn did not provide an exact date for when the Ukrainian journalist’s body would be returned, but he added that it would be “soon.”

“There was information that Viktoria was being prepared for an exchange. It would have been the second time we managed to free a civilian journalist. Unfortunately, this time, it didn’t happen,” he noted.

Yurchyshyn recalled that on 28 June 2024, Ukraine successfully returned Nariman Dzhelyal, the First Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people and a journalist in a prisoner swap with Russia.

“There will be a response to Viktoria’s death in Russian captivity not only from the Ukrainian parliament but from the entire government,” he emphasized.

According to the deputy, the Ukrainian Parliament’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, is already working to document the death of the Ukrainian journalist as a war crime. Meanwhile, the military prosecutor’s office is working to open a criminal case regarding intentional murder.

Yurchyshyn said that Reporters Without Borders would demand an investigation into this crime and emphasized that Russia has already killed 12 civilian journalists and is holding many more hostages.

The official also reported that Ukraine is working with European organizations that protect freedom of speech to draw attention to Ukrainian civilian journalists held in Russian captivity, including Dmytro Khiliuk.

Khiliuk, a journalist for the “UNIAN” Ukrainian news agency, was kidnapped by Russian forces on 3 March 2022 in his home village of Kozarovychi. The Security Service of Ukraine department in Kyiv and the Kyiv region is investigating his abduction.

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