A fearless journalist dedicated to uncovering the truth has vanished in occupied territories, leaving behind a legacy of powerful stories. Her relentless pursuit of justice and human righ...

Vika Roschina worked for hromadske for over five years. She was one of those journalists who didn’t wait for an editorial assignment. Whenever something happened, Vika was already there. At protests, clashes, and crime scenes. She took on tough challenges, had a passion for law enforcement topics, and attended significant and scandalous court hearings. Time and geography were irrelevant for her — at any moment, Viktoria was ready to head off on a trip even before she was told it was necessary. She had no weekends, vacations, or sick leave.

From 2017 to 2022, while at hromadske, Vika conducted dozens of live streams — from government buildings and courtrooms, and in real-time welcomed the release of National Guard soldier Vitaliy Markiv, political prisoners Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko, created films, and wrote articles on various topics.

On February 23, 2022, Viktoria was in Shchastia in the Luhansk region. She traveled there on the eve of the full-scale invasion because she sensed that something was about to happen, so she moved closer to the front line.

With the onset of the full-scale war, Vika filmed videos and wrote articles from hotspot areas in the east and south of Ukraine. In the first two weeks, she managed to produce a report from Huliaipole, which was then under constant shelling, and from Zaporizhzhia, approaching Russian forces; talked to evacuated residents of Volnovakha and told the world what life is like in temporarily occupied Enerhodar.

Afterward, Vika prepared materials on military actions in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions and planned to go to Mariupol to report on the situation in a city that was already surrounded.

On March 16, we learned that she was detained by Russians on her way to Mariupol and sent to a prison in temporarily occupied Berdiansk. On March 21, she was able to be released. About this experience, Vika wrote a column “A Week in Captivity with the Occupants. How I Escaped from the Hands of the FSB, 'Kadyrovites,' and Dagestanis”. Immediately after her release, Vika created material about Mariupol, speaking with evacuated residents who were then in Berdiansk.

Subsequently, she began freelancing for various editorial offices to have more freedom regarding where she traveled and what she wrote about. She visited occupied territories and reported from there.

On August 3, 2023, it became known that Vika had disappeared in temporarily occupied territories. Only in May 2024 did Russia confirm for the first time that it was holding her captive.

And on October 10, news of her death emerged. Petro Yatsenko, press secretary of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, reported that Viktoria was being prepared for exchange, but, “unfortunately, we were unable to make it in time”: “The fact that she was being transferred from Taganrog to Moscow was a stage of her preparation for release”.

We were eagerly awaiting the day of Vika's release. But there will be neither a live stream nor a happy return story.

However, hundreds of her materials remain. They held immense significance for her. They were her life and a part of herself.

Correct, not punish

Shortly before the start of the full-scale war, in January 2022, Vika presented a film about juvenile colonies.

In it, she explored how the experience of such institutions affects young people. She spoke with convicted teenagers, those awaiting sentencing, and repeat offenders, as well as with colony staff, volunteers, and psychologists.

Additionally, Vika worked on materials about a guy who was sentenced to six years for selling a few grams of cannabis and a teenager who was accused of attacking relatives with a knife.

PTSD. Altered State

In 2021, Vika created a film about how to psychologically reintegrate soldiers returning from war, examining what (and whether enough) the state does for this purpose. In the film, she shared the stories of Oleksiy Belko, who “mined” a capital bridge, Dmytro Balabukh, who stabbed a person at a bus stop, and Mykola Mykytenko, who set himself on fire at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv. Vika sought to answer why soldiers return from war physically but struggle to do so psychologically. Why the war still resides within them.

“Behind Closed Doors.” How the abortion scandal at an orphanage in Mykolaiv Oblast exposed deep systemic issues

Vika was the first journalist to investigate the story of the orphanage in Mykolaiv Oblast, where in 2021 one of the underage residents was allegedly forced to have an abortion. At that time, law enforcement opened a criminal case, the girl was sent for rehabilitation, and politicians and representatives of the children's ombudsman took personal control of the situation.

However, the story did not end there. For many graduates and former staff of the orphanage, it became an opportunity to openly share their concerns. Most graduates, in conversations with Vika, compared the place to a prison: what happens behind the closed doors of the school is little known to anyone, making it difficult for even the appropriate authorities to monitor it.

Kerch Prisoners. The Story of Captured Ukrainian Sailors

In this film, Viktoria told the story of 24 Ukrainian sailors who were captured by Russians near the Kerch Strait on November 25, 2018. They were held in Russian prisons for months without being recognized as prisoners of war, despite the international tribunal's obligations under maritime law to release them immediately. Vika followed their cases, spoke with the sailors' families, attended Russian courts, conversed with lawyers, military personnel, and prisoners of war, and created a reconstruction of the events in the strait. We presented the film in August 2019, and on September 7, Vika welcomed the sailors in Boryspil — they were released during a large exchange at that time.

How the Hrytsenko Case Began, or What's Wrong with the Alyoshkov Forest?

In the spring of 2018, a fire destroyed over 600 hectares of the Alyoshkov Forest in the Kherson region. At that time, the advisor to the mayor of Kherson, Ekaterina Hrytsenko, emphasized: the forest was being burned to sell it later. In July 2018, Katya was attacked, and in November, she died from her injuries. The prosecutor's office then stated that the activist's words about the forest's arson were a probable motive for the crime against her.

From the moment of the attack on Ekaterina, Vika Roschina monitored the developments in this case, spoke with the father of the deceased, and attended almost every court hearing.

Maidan

From the beginning to the end of her work at hromadske, Vika did not leave the topic of the shootings on Maidan. She produced materials about the “Black Company” of the “Berkut”, the abduction and torture of Maidan activists Ihor Lutsenko and Yuriy Verbitsky, as well as key verdicts in the Maidan cases.

All materials by Viktoria Roschina are available at this link.