Shudder causes what the Guardian reveals for the martyred end of the 27 -year -old journalist Victoria Roskina from Ukrainearrested in Zaporizia in the summer of 2023 and held in Russia.
When the corpse of the journalist from Ukraine was returned during the exchange on February 14, were missing the brain, eyes and larynxwhich means that the exact cause of death may never become known.
An indication of the status of the body was the fact that he had no indication of whether he belonged to a man or woman as he only brought – as opposed to the rest 757 bodies and relics delivered that day – was the inscription «NM SPAS 757» which in Russian meant a “unknown man” and “extensive damage to the coronary arteries”.
When posting GuardianRoskina was detained without accusations and without access to a lawyer, while her only contact with the outside world was a 4 -minute phone call to her parents at the time of the Russians.
As noted, he has begun investigation into war crimes with the aim of prosecuting those responsible for the journalist’s death.
“She was shocking her, she had knives”
Information about the last months of her life gathered thanks to more than 50 interviews with survivors from reservation to Russian prisons as well as with the families of some of the prisoners. Information they also gave legal in Russia and occupied Ukraine as well as corrective employees who resigned from their service, shocked by what they had seen.
One of the witnesses was her detainee, who was released last September and recorded her deposit In a video for the prosecutor.
As the woman testified, the body of the journalist from Ukraine was full of bruises. ‘During the interrogations, She was shocking her … They made her knives – I saw them: definitely in the hand, on the leg … a fresh knife sign – on the bar, on the soft tissue between the wrist and the elbow. A sign of about 3 cm. He said that one guy called him “mal@”, he was violent, crazy. On her leg, over the heel – I also saw this, a 5cm wound. Told me “I begged them not to touch the trauma.”
Towards the end of 2023, Roskina was informed by a FSB officer, whom she named Maxim Moroz, was transferred to another prison and promised her better treatment there.
According to witnesses, she was transported alone, with a jeep and held in a detention center.
“She has already arrived full of unknown drugs,” said a second prisoner who met her there.
‘He arrived and essentially started to go crazy. We talked to her, but she was lost in her mind, with her eyes terrified, “said her detainee, who described that Roskyn was lying” coiled in an embryonic stop on the floor “behind a curtain that hid the toilet, away from the eyes.
According to the testimonies It had reached 30 pounds.
Soldier Jeveni Markevic said the 27 -year -old “did not officially started a hunger strike, just began to refuse food. He initially claimed that it was for religious reasons, fasting or something, and then began to say that he could not eat for health reasons. “
According to the deposit of her detainee, Rosky’s legs were swollen. She was offered her heart pills, but she seems to have denied them – as the British media notes – heart problems and fluid retention in the tissues of the feet are symptoms of hunger.
In June she was hospitalized for several weeks where, according to witnesses, six masked guards armed with machine guns indicating that Moscow considered her considered her valuable negotiating paper. In July, he was reportedly transferred to the serum prison as he appeared to continue to refuse food.
In April 2024, her family received the first official confirmation that she was alive in a letter from the Russian Ministry of Defense. The letter only stated that “it has been arrested and is currently on the territory of the Russian Federation”.
In late August, Roskina was allowed to call her home. Ukrainian negotiators informed her parents that she had begun a hunger strike. The 27 -year -old’s phone call was talking to Russian. “They promised me that I was going to go home in September,” she told her parents, and when her father urged her to eat, she said goodbye to saying, “Well, that was it. Goodbye, goodbye. Mom, dad, I love you. “
The last 27 -year -old’s trip and the dedication to her work
The last time she left Ukraine was on July 25, 2023. At 14:09 that day, her phone was connected to a Polish mobile network.
The mapping of her trip showed that from Poland, she traveled through Lithuania, north to Latvia. A photo of her passport and her entry form on Russian territory showed that the 27 -year -old entered Russia by Latvia, under her real name, through the Ludonka border station.
A few days later, on August 3, her father, Volodimir, sounded an alarm when she realized that his daughter had stopped connecting to her social media accounts with the information and testimonies she gathered to lead him to a notorious prison in the seaside town of Taykano.
Known to her family as Vika, Roskina grew up in the shadow of war. Her father was a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and was 17 years old when Russia annexed Crimea. She and her sister grew up in the same city as Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski.
Her colleagues describe her as devoted to her work and intransigently. “She had no life other than her work, she had no friends, she had no partner. But he did a great job. It was a mission for her, “said Seville Musieva, editor -in -chief of Ukrainska Pravda. “It was one of the most brave journalists I met in my career.”
To protect her sources, the 27 -year -old used many phones. She settled her messages to disappear and her articles wrote them in records that were also self -written.
Her first “contact” with the Russian authorities took place in March 2022, while reporting from the occupied city of Berdansk.
She was then captured by a soldier and surrendered to agents of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), where she was forced to record a propaganda video and released her a few days later, after a public outcry.
When she returned to Ukraine, her colleagues urged her to rest and do psychotherapy.
However, she continued to cross the front line. Revealed the conditions of fear under which workers operating in operation of the Zaporizia nuclear station and searched the murder of two 16 -year -old boys who dared to oppose the Russians
On her last trip she is alleged to be looking for the location of secret centers, underground or industrial buildings where Russian security agents used torture systematically to interrogate citizens or force them into false bonds while drawing a list of FSB agents.