A FEMALE journalist has died after spending more than a year in Russian detention, claim Ukrainian officials.
Victoria Roshchyna, 27, mysteriously disappeared last August while reporting from inside Russian-occupied Ukraine with officials now saying she has tragically died as Vladimir Putin’s prisoner of war.
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Roshchyna’s family first reported her missing to Ukrainian officials on August 12 last year after not hearing from her for days.
The journalist last spoke to her sister a week earlier as she said she had made it through routine border checks to get across Russian land but didn’t disclose her location.
An official missing person case was then filed on September 21.
The esteemed Ukrainian reporter was missing for over 6 months with her whereabouts finally revealed in April 2024 when her worried father was sent a letter from Moscow.
Russia‘s defence ministry said Roshchyna was being held at a Russian detention centre, according to Ukraine’s main journalist union.
The reason why she was arrested and subjected to months of imprisonment has never been made public.
The exact location of the jail has also been kept underwraps by Russian officials.
Her death was first announced by Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s prison of war coordination headquarters.
He said: “Unfortunately, information about Victoria’s death has been confirmed.
“It is too early to talk about the circumstances of the death, we are working to establish them.”
Press rights group Reporters Without Borders say they are “shocked” over Roshchyna’s death.
Russian news outlet Mediazona have claimed she may have died when she was being transferred to Moscow from a prison in Taganrog, near to the Ukrainian border.
The 27-year-old was also caught up in Russian aggression in March 2022 when a group of Kremlin spies reportedly kidnapped Roshchyna just hours after her car was shot at.
Victoria claimed at the time that Russians fired at her vehicle and forced a group of press to abandon the car and lie down hiding in a field.
After returning to the car some time after and continuing on with the trip across southern Ukraine Roshchyna was allegedly taken by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), her colleagues said.
She was released after 10 days in captivity.
Unfortunately, information about Victoria’s death has been confirmed
Petro Yatsenko
Roshchyna worked as a freelancer for various independent news outlets in Eastern Europe.
These included Ukrainska Pravda and the Ukrainian service of US-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe.
In 2022, her frontline reporting was honoured when she received the Courage in Journalism award by the International Women’s Media Foundation.
Roshchyna is just one of thousands of Ukrainians known to be held in Russia after they opposed to Moscow’s iron fist ruling.
Many have been detained in Russian-occupied territories since Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Rights groups say some have faced torture and abuse at the hands of their captors.
Back in May, Ukraine claimed more than two dozen media officials are being held in Russian captivity.
The country are in negotiations to free those still locked up.
Many other Russian prisoners jailed on bogus charges have been released this year.
A huge 24 person swap deal between the US and Russia in July saw journalists, military officials and foreign opposers to Putin’s regime freed in exchange for Russian prisoners.
Those rescued included former US marine Paul Whelan and British-Russian journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza.
The most notable person was Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who had spent 491 days inside a horrific Russian penal system on trumped up charges.
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