In the heart of a merciless war, the story of 27-year-old Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshkina unfolds like a nightmare that haunts humanity. Her arrest in Zaporizhia in the summer of 2023 marked the beginning of a torturous journey that ended in a death so horrific that its details freeze the blood. As the Guardian’s investigation reveals, her body, handed over in February 2025, bears the marks of a torture that surpasses all limits of humanity.
Forensic examinations reveal a catalogue of horrors: electric shock burns to her legs, abrasions to her hips and head, a broken rib that testifies to violent injuries. The hyoid bone in her neck, broken, whispers the possibility of strangulation. Her long, blond hair, once proudly groomed, had been shaved off with fury, as if to erase any trace of her identity. Most appalling, however, is the condition of her body at the exchange on February 14: brainless, eyeless, throatless, an empty shell that can no longer reveal the exact cause of her death. The only identification given to her was a cold inscription: “NM SPAS 757” – “unknown male” in Russian, with a misleading reference to “extensive damage to the coronary arteries.” Victoria, a woman full of life, had disappeared, even in death.
Roskina was held without charges, without a lawyer, cut off from the world. Her only contact with her family was a four-minute phone call, a cry of despair from the depths of her captivity. Testimonies from detainees and former prison officers, who resigned, devastated by the horror they witnessed, paint a grim portrait. One detainee, released in September 2023, described Victoria’s body as covered in bruises, stab wounds to her forearm and leg, and electric shock burns. “I begged them not to touch the wound,” Victoria said, referring to a torturer she called “an asshole” – a man whose violence seemed to be fueled by madness.
Roskina’s fellow inmate testifies about her conditions
In 2023, an FSB officer, Maxim Moroz, promised her better treatment in a new prison. Instead, she was taken alone, in a jeep, to the Sizo 2 detention center, where hell awaited her. “She arrived full of unknown drugs,” one inmate testified. “She was lost, with terrified eyes, curled up in a fetal position behind a curtain, near the toilet, as if she wanted to hide from the world.” Weighing just 30 kilograms, she could barely stand, leaning on bunks and fellow inmates. Her feet swollen, her body exhausted, she refused food – first for “religious reasons,” then for health reasons. Hunger consumed her, while guards offered her heart pills, which she refused.
In June 2024, she was hospitalized under the watchful eye of six masked guards with machine guns—proof that Moscow considered her a valuable pawn. She was returned to prison on IV fluids, continuing to refuse food. In August, in a final phone call to her parents, she spoke in Russian, her voice breaking: “They promised me I would come home in September.” When her father begged her to eat, she said goodbye: “Goodbye, Mom, Dad, I love you.” It was the last time they heard her voice.
Victoria, known as Vika to her family, grew up in the shadow of war, in a town 30 miles from the Russian advance. Devoted to journalism, with no friends or personal life, she saw her work as a mission. “She was the bravest journalist I’ve ever met,” her editor-in-chief told Ukrainska Pravda. She used multiple phones, self-deleting messages, and archives to protect her sources. She investigated the atrocities at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and the murder of two 16-year-olds who resisted the Russians. Her last trip, in July 2023, took her to secret torture centers, where she documented the crimes of the FSB. Her capture was the price of the truth she sought.
Her entry into Russia through Latvia, under her real name, was the beginning of the end. On August 3, her father raised the alarm when she disappeared from social media. The information placed her in the notorious Taganrog prison, a place where horror had made its home. An investigation into war crimes has begun, but justice seems far away. Victoria, who dedicated her life to uncovering the truth, paid the ultimate price, leaving behind a legacy of courage and a world that still struggles to hear her cry.
