The body of a Ukrainian journalist killed in Russia was repatriated without her eyes or brain, a world investigation has found.
Viktoria Roshchyna disappeared in the summertime of 2023 near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, on what was a minimum of her fourth trip to the occupied territories.
She was held in an unofficial detention centre in Rostov for a minimum of a 12 months, unable to contact the surface world apart from one four-minute phone conversation together with her parents.
Viktoria died aged 27 after a 12 months in detention, and in February her stays were finally repatriated to Ukraine.
She was one in every of 757 Ukrainian military casualties handed over by Russia, and every of the opposite bodies got here with a reputation, number, location, and sometimes a reason for death – but in accordance with their paperwork, she was an ‘unidentified man’.
It took weeks for officials to verify those unidentified stays were the truth is Viktoria Roshchyna – and a few of her body parts were missing, including her brain, eyes, and larynx.
Her head had also been shaved.
Preliminary forensic investigation found ‘quite a few signs of torture’ including burn marks on her feet from electric shocks, abrasions on the hips and head, and a broken rib.
Sources near the official investigation told The Guardian that Viktoria’s hyoid bone in her neck was broken – the kind of damage which might occur during strangulation.
But on account of her missing body parts, the precise reason for her death may never be known.
Viktoria’s death was first confirmed when her father Volodymyr Roshchyn received a letter from the Russian authorities.
He remained hopeful that his daughter was still alive until her body was finally identified through DNA testing.
She was held with none access to communication with the surface world – a serious human rights violation in accordance with international law – and a war crimes investigation into her death has been opened.
In accordance with an initial report, Viktoria was held in a brief detention centre in Melitopol, and in accordance with a cellmate who was later released from the prison, she was tortured with knives and electric shocks.
Towards the tip of 2023 she was transferred to a different prison, generally known as Sizo 2, but her condition deteriorated here.
Other prisoners were water-boarded, beaten, shocked in an electrical chair, and given very small rations of food.
Viktoria stopped eating, her weight dropping to 30kg (lower than 5st), and he or she struggled to maneuver without help.
In April 2024 her family received a letter from the Russian defence ministry saying she ‘has been detained and is currently within the territory of the Russian Federation’. It gave no other details.
Colleagues at Ukrainian Pravda, where she worked, began pulling string to try to get her released – and a message was even passed to Pope Francis on the Vatican, who agreed to ask for her name to be added to the prisoner exchange list.
Viktoria was told she was on account of be released – but when the prisoner exchange date arrived on September 13 of last 12 months, she was missing.
Weeks later, the deputy head of Russia’s military police wrote to her father to say she had died on September 19.
Volodymyr refused to imagine his daughter was dead and wrote several letters demanding information. Sizo 2 director Aleksandr Shtoda has replied twice claiming she was never there, saying in January she ‘isn’t and was not listed within the databases’.
Viktoria bravely went to the Russian-occupied territories to try to uncover the alleged abduction and torture of Ukrainian residents.
Ukraine believes as many as 16,000 of its civilians may very well be held in greater than 180 Russian detention camps for gratis.
The UN has described Russia’s treatment of detainees as ‘disturbing and the dimensions is extreme’.
Alice Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, told the Washington Post: ‘I even have documented serious cases of torture, including mock executions, all kinds of beatings, electricity being applied to ears and genitals and other parts of the body, waterboarding, in addition to threats and actual rapes and sexual violence.’
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