Ukrainian journalist’s body returned home from Russia ‘without eyes or a brain’

The body of a Ukrainian journalist was returned home from captivity without her eyes or brain, according to an international investigation.

Viktoria Roshchyna’s body was repatriated to Kyiv in February after she disappeared into an unofficial detention centre in Rostov, Russia, in August 2023.

According to Mail Online, her corpse was handed back in a badly labelled ‘unidentified male’ as part of an exchange with Russia, until DNA tests revealed it belonged to the missing journalist.

It was reported that forensic experts discovered the body had been tortured and mutilated. Her eyeballs, brain, and part of her throat were removed.

Her head was also shaved, and her neck was bruised, and attached to her shin was a tag with her last name. Her feet were also covered in burn marks, according to officials familiar with an ongoing investigation by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office.

Medical examiners later found Roshchyna had a broken rib and possible traces of electric shock. Ukrainian authorities only revealed that her body had been repatriated on April 24.

A DNA test confirmed that the body belonged to the 27-year-old journalist who had vanished into the brutal Russian prison system after being detained while reporting on claims that the country was operating a network of unofficial detention centres in August 2023.

Roshchyna is the first Ukrainian journalist to die in Russian captivity, and was first reported dead on October 2. But her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn, clung to the hopes that she was still alive until her body was returned and eventually identified.

The young journalist spent the majority of her time in detention at the Taganrog SIZO-2 prison in Rostov, which is also known as Russia’s Guantanamo, after the United States military prison – Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

An investigation into her death revealed that the reporter was held incommunicado during her captivity in Russia, a serious human rights violation according to international law.

According to the report, after initially being held in the cities of Enerhodar and Melitopol, Roshchyna was transferred to the Taganrog detention centre run by Russia’s Federal Security Service in critical condition.

But she reportedly told one cellmate that she had refused a deal offered by a serviceman transporting her because ‘she always stuck to her principles’. 

On October 10, Roshchyna’s father received a letter from Russia announcing her death, though it failed to clarify the circumstances of her passing.