By Dan Peleschuk
(Reuters) -Ukraine stated on Friday it was investigating the loss of life in Russian captivity of a Ukrainian journalist whose first-hand stories offered a glimpse into life beneath Russian occupation early in Moscow’s invasion.
Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 after embarking on a reporting journey to occupied jap Ukraine, and Russia acknowledged final April that she was being held.
Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets confirmed her loss of life on social media late on Thursday in what he condemned as unlawful detention. He didn’t specify the circumstances.
Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s navy intelligence, advised the general public broadcaster Suspilne that Roshchyna had been on a listing of prisoners to be exchanged, and that “everything necessary had been done” for the swap.
She had been as a consequence of be transferred to Moscow from the southern metropolis of Taganrog, he stated.
The marketing campaign group Reporters With out Borders stated Roshchyna had died on Sept. 19, citing a letter that her household acquired on Thursday from Russia’s Defence Ministry.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor Normal’s workplace stated it had up to date its war-crime investigation into Roshchyna’s disappearance to incorporate homicide.
By Friday morning, Russia had not publicly commented on her loss of life.
“What did they do with her? What could have been done to a young girl to make her die?” activist and colleague Oleksandra Matviichuk, a 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, wrote on X.
In an announcement on Friday, the European Union demanded “a thorough and independent investigation that clarifies all the circumstances” of Roshchyna’s loss of life.
“Her fate is a tragic reminder of the many thousands of persons detained in occupied Ukrainian territories and Russia, as well as the repression imposed by Russian authorities,” it stated.
REPORTER DOCUMENTED LIFE UNDER RUSSIAN OCCUPATION
Roshchyna’s vivid stories documented Moscow’s efforts to cement Russian energy in elements of occupied jap and southern Ukraine after the Kremlin’s invasion in February 2022.
She additionally captured the problem of every day life within the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia seized and unilaterally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Roshchyna’s articles for shops corresponding to Ukrainska Pravda and U.S.-funded Radio Liberty included images of Russian navy {hardware} and revealed the extent of smash in Mariupol, the southeastern port metropolis devastated by a months-long Russian assault and siege.
She had been held as soon as earlier than by Russian forces, for 10 days, in southeastern Ukraine within the first weeks of the Kremlin’s invasion.
Ukrainska Pravda editor-in-chief Sevgil Musaieva described Roshchyna as “incredibly brave” and dedicated to revealing the plight of residents beneath Russian occupation.
“It was impossible to stop her, to hold her back. She was completely dedicated to journalism,” Musaieva wrote on Fb (NASDAQ:).