Witness tells of Ukrainian journalist's final days in remote Russian prison

Details of the last days in captivity of the Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died last year, have emerged with the witness account of a soldier who was with her when she was transported to a prison deep inside Russia.

- Stas Kozliuk Poline Tchoubar Guillaume Vénétitay

Roshchyna was seized while reporting from behind enemy lines in occupied Ukraine in the summer of 2022, one of an estimated 16,000 civilians detained by Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

A Ukrainian soldier with the Azov regiment, who was released this summer, has come forward with an account that corroborates recent reports that Roshchyna died after being transported to Sizo-3, a prison in the town of Kizel, near the Ural mountains.

Speaking to reporters from the Viktoriia Project, an investigation by the Guardian and international media partners led by the French newsroom Forbidden Stories, Mykyta Semenov said Roshchyna's last journey began by train and ended on trucks. He travelled in the same wagon, and first saw the journalist as she walked down the corridor to go to the toilet.

"I saw her. She walked past our compartment," said Semenov. "She was wearing a light blue summer dress with flowers. She also had summer sneakers with white soles, sporty ones. And she had a small makeup mirror she carried with her."

The journalist was walking with her hands behind her back in a stress position. Having been on hunger strike while held at another facility, Roshchyna was by this time in visibly poor health.

"It looked like everything was difficult for her: walking was difficult, eating was difficult, speaking was difficult. It seemed like that dress of hers ... that the dress was carrying her. Holding her up."

The Russian ministry of defence wrote to her family to say she had died, age 27, on 19 September 2024. The cause and location of her death have never been officially confirmed. Her remains, which were returned to Ukraine, showed multiple signs of torture, according to the investigating prosecutor.