It is simply Impossible to read the news about the Ukrainian journalist Victoriia Roshchyna without feeling tremendous pain & anger.

I have previously written about Victoriia here on this website, Victoriia Roshchyna: The Ukrainian Journalist Murdered by Russia for Telling the Truth

Now her body have been returned to Ukraine from russian captivity and the details are so inhumane and grim I need to add a disclaimer that this post might be traumatic to read. But I hope you will do it anyway, I need you to do so, because this is the brutal reality Ukrainians face living under russian occupation and terror.

Victoriias body was returned in such horrific condition, damaged from starvation & torture, that several DNA tests had to be performed to confirm her identity. 

Originally, little information was known about russias illegal imprisonment of Roshchyna.

She went missing summer 2023, russia shared zero information about her abduction for 9 months. Investigations have found that she was initially detained in occupied Enerhodar. 

In February this year, Ukraine received the bodies of 757 victims as part of an exchange. Amongst them was Victoria’s body, but it took months to determine this, as the russians handed over her body labeled as an “unidentified man” with “heart disease”. 

Victoriia’s body arrived without her eyes, brain & part of her larynx. An international pathologist expert told the investigative team of “Victoriia Project” that these organs were likely purposefully removed to hide the cause of death. Which in this case would likely be pointing towards strangulation and suffocation. 

Due to these horrific circumstances and the condition of her body, the results of the forensic medical examination remain under the label “inconclusive” as it is impossible to confirm the exact cause of death without the missing organs.

The official investigation regarding Victoriias death is ongoing. 

“The body of the young journalist showed numerous signs of torture & cruel treatment , including abrasions & hemorrhages on various parts of the body, a broken rib, a neck injury & possible traces of electric shock on the feet” – Yuriy Belousov, a Ukrainian Prosecutor told the “Viktoriia Project”.

Interviews have been conducted with others held prisoned with Victoriia, recalling seeing multiple scars on Roshchyna’s arms and legs, as well as knife wounds. 

“She told me they tortured her with electric shocks. She was all blue and weighing not more than 30kg. She couldn’t lift her own head. ” 

The “Viktoriia Project” was initiated by “Forbidden Stories”, a large collaboration of media outlets & international journalists collecting stories and testimonials from Ukrainian POW’s & civilians living under russian occupation.

These are vital stories for the world to understand the reality of russias many war crimes. 

More than 50 interviews have been conducted. All of them telling horrific stories of what survivors have endured being abducted & illegally detained by russian forces & FSB in occupied territories.

Torture chambers, electric shocks, brutal beatings & rape, are all elements of abuse that has repeatedly been revealed in almost every interview. 

Iryna, is one of the civilians interviewed who survived russian abduction & torture.

“They poured water on me before electrocuting me, they put one wire on my fingers & another on my ear lobes. They beat me with batons, put a gun in my mouth, and slapped my ear membrane. At one point they punch me and broke my collarbone. Then, when I was already lying on the floor, they beat me with an electric cord. They said: “Now the Chechens will come, they will rape you, they love people like this” the woman recalls.

Viktoriia was first imprisoned in the same place Iryna was held and tortured.

Victoriias body signs from the same type torture as Iryna testified.

Victoriia was later sent to what is called the “garages” in Melitopol. One of the many unofficial torture prisons russians have created in the cities of occupation. 

Viktoriia had been missing for several months before the russians confirmed she was being held in their captivity but no information about where & why.

Her father then appealed to the International Comite of Red Cross and their joke of a response was that; she was indeed in captivity, but there’s no access to her. 

International humanitarian law & the Geneva Conventions has given The redd Cross the status of an independent & neutral organisation. Their purpose is to ensure humanitarian aid to victims of war & to defend their rights, especially to those imprisoned and in captivity. A purpose they often seem to forget

https://x.com/inebackiversen/status/1796809104448774568?s=46&t=lMIyn_xF6AJc8xfkSxZkGQ

Viktoriia was eventually transferred and held in detention center № 2 of Taganrog.

A place known to be among the most brutal. Survivors have confirmed that, neither lawyers nor international organizations, Red Cross or observers from UN have visited the detention center. 

A UN torture rapporteur says:

“russia continue to deny us access to territories russia occupy in Ukraine”

yet no official charges is found against russia for this.

It begs the question of what orgs like UN & ICRC is actually for if humanitarian laws aren’t even enforced by them. 

Prisoners in Taganrog are isolated, deprived from contact, calls and even letters from the outside world.

This type of isolation is a war crime itself, stated in the Geneva Conventions.

The russian ways of using torture in this prison is said to be both strategic & brutal. Involving everything from inhumane beatings to starvation. 

Survivors recall being fed nothing but rotten potatoes for the first 3 months, which I believe russians do not only because it’s disgusting and difficult to eat, but rotten potatoes in particular, produce the toxic chemical solanine.

Rotting potatoes give off a noxious solanine gas that can make a person unconscious if they’ve inhaled enough. There have even been cases of people dying in their root cellars due to unbeknownst rotting potatoes. Consuming rotten potatoes and Solanine can cause gastrointestinal and neurological disorders, with symptoms including nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, hallucinations, paralysis, and death.

According to the cell mate, Victoriia had to be taken to the hospital in the summer of 2024 because of her malnutrition.

She was so weak that it was difficult for her to even walk on her own.

What treatments she got during that hospital stay, is unknown, but when she returned she was kept in a solitary cell, isolated for days.

According to Intelligence sources Victoriia was set to be exchanged on September 8th 2024.

However, this never happened.

That day, Victoriia was taken from the cell and was told she’d be prepared for exchange. Her cell mates had to help her out of the cell.

Later that day, a russian prison guard had told the cellmate and other prisoners that:

“The journalist never got to the exchange”

And

“She herself is to blame for that” 

Whatever was done to Victoriia by the russians during the “preparation for exchange” is what eventually lead to her death.

The horrific details of how Ukrainians are being abused and tortured in captivity by russians, is not rare and unusual cases.

it is a pattern of strategic & systematic abuse that Ukrainians have been subjected to since russia started their occupation of Ukraine in 2014. 

russian “special military” personnel, often criminals who’s been offered a “military position” as a “get out of jail free”-card is sent in rotation, not to the front but to the “garages” specifically to torture & abuse the Ukrainian prisoners without “restriction or supervision.” 

Some of these russians have even told in interviews that most of the Ukrainians held in the torture prisons in russian occupied areas are;

“not even military, they are mostly civilians”

captured & imprisoned for no given reason, tortured & abused in the most brutal ways. 

This is what russia does in the places they occupy, to civilians, journalists, aid workers, anyone, simply for being Ukrainian.

Those russia aim to erase.

Suggesting Ukraine surrender parts of their land, means abandoning Ukrainians, leave them to be starved, tortured & slaughtered. 

This is not “just about land”.

It’s about living, breathing human beings.

The Ukrainian people living under an occupying force that terrorize, torture, abuse and slaughter them in their own homes.

Is this a world we want to live in?

A world we want to create?

Are we willing to live with knowing that we allow aggressors & war criminals to commit a genocide for the sake of our own privileged comfort?

Are we so naive as to think, that if we let terrorism go unpunished, it will not eventually come to our door? 

I will end this post with a link to a 9 minute video summary from the “Viktoriia Project”. These are stories everyone should hear and know about. It’s in English with some Ukrainian interviews, make sure to turn the CC on for translated subtitles. 

For Victoriia, may you rest in eternal glory and peace. May your memory and bravery never be forgotten.

I’m so sorry we failed you.

• The Stolen Ukrainian Children: The russian War Crime Of Erasing Generations
• The Witkoff File: Three Decades of russian Cash, One Kremlin “Peace Plan.”
• Strength Under Fire: Ukrainians Fight So the Future Isn’t Ruled by Tyrants
• 165 Days of Heroism: The Story of Two Ukrainian Soldiers Who Defied the Odds
• The UN Confirms What Ukraine Has Been Saying All Along: Russia Is Committing Crimes Against Humanity