Kyiv accuses Russian prison chief of ordering torture of Ukrainian journalist who died in captivity

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has accused the head of a pretrial detention centre in Taganrog, southern Russia, of ordering the systemic torture of a Ukrainian journalist that died in Russian captivity last year.

Viktoria Roshchyna was detained in August 2023 while reporting undercover from Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, and transferred to a pretrial detention centre in Taganrog. She died under unclear circumstances in September. Her body, which displayed signs of torture and mistreatment, was only repatriated to Ukraine in February, without her eyes or brain.

While in captivity, Roshchyna had been electrocuted and stabbed and lost up to 30kg, according to a documentary about the late journalist’s last months that came out in March.

Ukrainian prosecutors established that the head of the pretrial detention centre in Taganrog had “organised a system of repressive treatment” of captured Ukrainian POWs and civilians held at the prison, including Roshchyna, who was subjected to “systemic torture, beatings, humiliation, threats, severe restrictions on access to medical care, drinking water and food”.

While the Prosecutor General’s Office did not name the suspect, open source data suggests that the man who headed the pretrial detention centre at the time of Roshchyna’s captivity was Alexander Shtoda. His current whereabouts are unknown.

The prison chief had been aware that Roshchyna was a civilian, but deliberately violated the provisions of the Geneva Conventions for the treatment of prisoners of war, the prosecutors added. If convicted, he faces 12 years in prison.

The Associated Press estimated in May that over 200 Ukrainian POWs had died in Russian detention centres, penal colonies and prisons since the beginning of the war. Russia does not disclose the number of Ukrainian soldiers held in captivity, but based on an estimate cited by the BBC in December, at least 8,000 Ukrainians — both soldiers and civilians — are believed to be held in Russian prisons.