Ukrainian Parliament asks Zelenskyy to posthumously award title Hero of Ukraine to journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna
The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) has asked President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to posthumously award the title of Hero of Ukraine to journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna.
Source: Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne
Details: The request was supported by 246 Members of Parliament.
Viktoriia Roshchyna worked for such media outlets as Ukrainska Pravda, Radio Ukraine, UA:Pershyi, hromadske, News of Donbas, Censor.net and Radio Liberty.
In 2022, she received the Courage in Journalism Award of the International Women's Media Foundation.
In March 2022, Russian troops detained Viktoriia in the temporarily occupied city of Berdiansk in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, but she was released at that time.
In summer 2022, Roshchyna attempted to enter the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine for a reporting assignment. According to her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn, on 27 July, Viktoriia left Ukraine for Poland and intended to reach the occupied areas in eastern Ukraine via Russia. On 3 August, during her last conversation with her family, she said she had been undergoing checks at the border for several days but did not specify her location. That same day, she went missing.
In May 2024, Russia confirmed it had detained Viktoriia. The Russian Ministry of Defence sent a letter to her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn, confirming her arrest.
On 10 October 2024, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War announced that Viktoriia Roshchyna had died in Russian captivity.
Andrii Yusov, representative of Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, stated that Viktoriia had been on the list for a prisoner exchange and was expected to return home soon. On 11 October, the Prosecutor General’s Office reported that, in light of information about her death in Russia, the criminal case initially opened regarding her disappearance had been reclassified. It is now being investigated as a war crime involving intentional murder.
Investigators from Slidstvo.Info discovered that Roshchyna had been brutally tortured in Russian captivity. She had stab wounds on her body and had been electrocuted, and staff at the Russian penal colony where she was held hid her away when inspections were carried out.
Read some of Viktoriia Roshchyna’s writing for Ukrainska Pravda here.
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