Investigation into tortured journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna wins Online Journalism Award
The Viktoriia Project investigation into journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died in Russian captivity, has won the Excellence in Collaboration and Partnerships category at the international Online Journalism Awards.
Source: Online Journalism Awards
Details: Its competitors were Jailed and Pregnant (NBC News Digital), about pregnant women in US prisons, and The Poisonous Lead Trade (The Examination, Premium Times, The New York Times, Truth Reporting Post), about the poisonous lead trade in Nigeria.
The Viktoriia Project was initiated by the Paris-based newsroom of Forbidden Stories, with 13 media outlets, including Ukrainska Pravda, contributing to its creation.
The journalists reconstructed the route Viktoriia took through Russian prisons, uncovered details of the torture she endured in captivity, and investigated how Russian authorities delayed the return of the journalist's body.
The project also tells the stories of other civilian prisoners whom the Russians are holding in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and in Russia. Viktoriia had been reporting on their stories before her death.
Background:
- In March 2022, Viktoriia Roshchyna was captured by Russian forces and held for 10 days in the temporarily occupied city of Berdiansk.
- In 2022, Roshchyna wrote a series of articles for Ukrainska Pravda from the temporarily occupied territories. Her work included stories about life in occupied Crimea during the war, the sham referendum in occupied Donetsk Oblast, and a photo report from the devastated city of Mariupol.
- On 25 July 2023, Roshchyna left Ukraine for Poland, planning to make the three-day journey via Russia to the occupied part of Ukraine's east.
- On 3 August 2023, Roshchyna went missing in Russian-occupied territory.
- It was not until May 2024 that Russia admitted to having detained Roshchyna. The Russian Ministry of Defence sent a letter confirming this to her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn.
- Russia delayed the repatriation of Roshchyna's body, which was only returned in February 2025.
- The Office of the Prosecutor General reported that Roshchyna's body bore multiple signs of torture and ill-treatment: abrasions, bruises, a broken rib and evidence of electrocution.
- The investigative team conducting the inquiry confirmed that the body was brought back to Ukraine after an autopsy conducted in Russia. Journalists learned from law enforcement sources that the body was missing several internal organs – the brain, the eyeballs and part of the trachea. An international forensic pathologist believes this may have been an attempt to conceal the true cause of death, including possible suffocation.
- Viktoria's funeral was held in Kyiv on 8 August.
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