Starvation, isolation and a derailed prisoner swap: what is known about journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna's imprisonment in Taganrog

Journalists have learned details of the imprisonment of the journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died in Russian captivity, in Taganrog Detention Centre No. 2.

Source: Ukrainska Pravda article, Project Viktoriia: the story of the captivity and torture endured by journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna and thousands of Ukrainians imprisoned by Russia

Details: Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was transferred to pre-trial detention centre No. 2 in Taganrog, Russia, in early 2024.

Her father contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross. They confirmed that Viktoriia was in captivity but said they had no access to her.

In May, a released Ukrainian prisoner told UP journalists that she had personally seen Viktoriia in the Taganrog detention centre.

She said the inmates had been fed on rotten potatoes. Viktoriia began to lose weight rapidly due to malnutrition. The witness said that later, the guards forced Viktoriia to eat.

Viktoriia’s father said that in August 2024, she was temporarily transferred to hospital due to critical exhaustion. After her hospitalisation, she was returned to the detention centre, but this time she was put in solitary confinement.

A former inmate told UP that when she returned from the hospital, Viktoriia had a catheter on her arm, and the prison administration began to prepare separate meals for her. The inmate also noted that prison staff asked the other women what kind of food she could eat.

Viktoriia’s father said he spoke to his daughter by phone in August. Representatives of Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War had asked him to try to persuade Viktoriia to end her hunger strike.

"I said: 'Darling, you need to eat, they’ve promised to release you'. And she replied: 'Yes, I am eating, I swear'," he told reporters.

UP sources in Defence Intelligence of Ukraine and among Russian negotiators said that Viktoriia was due to be exchanged in September 2024. On 8 September, she was taken out of her cell to prepare for her return to Ukraine. But the exchange did not take place.

One of the witnesses in the detention centre told journalists they had seen Viktoriia being taken out: "We asked a girl from the cell to help her go down. With her help, she went down. After that, a guard came and said that the journalist had not been taken to the exchange. He added: ‘It was her own fault.’"

Read some of Viktoriia Roshchyna’s writing for Ukrainska Pravda here.

Read more: Journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna killed in captivity: a tribute through 7 of her best articles 

Background:

• Viktoriia Roshchyna left Ukraine for Poland on 25 July 2023 to travel to the occupied territory. She planned to reach the occupied part of Ukraine's east via Russia in three days.
• Roshchyna disappeared on 3 August 2023 in the temporary occupied territory she was reporting from.
• Russia admitted for the first time in May 2024 that they had detained Roshchyna. The Russian Ministry of Defence sent a letter of confirmation to her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn.

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