Ukraine announces death of country’s journalist detained by Russians

Ukrainian authorities confirmed this Thursday (10) that Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchina, who was detained in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region in August 2023, died in Russian captivity.

The news was announced by the spokesman for the Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Petro Yatsenko, in statements to the unified television news of Ukrainian channels.

Yatsenko said the circumstances of Roshchina’s death were unclear.

The 28-year-old journalist worked as a freelancer for several Ukrainian media outlets, such as the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, and international media outlets, such as Radio Free Europe (funded by the United States government), and was detained while reporting in the city of Berdiansk, in the south of the country and under Russian control.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian secret services, Andri Yusov, told public broadcaster Suspilne that Viktoria Roshchina would be included in one of the next prisoner exchanges to be returned to her country “in the immediate future.”