Russia returns mutilated body of top Ukrainian reporter, 27, with her eyes and brain missing after torture in Putin's brutal jails
Russia gave back the body of a detained award-winning Ukrainian female journalist with her eyeballs, brain and part of her larynx missing, it has been revealed.
Prisoner of war Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, was held in occupied Ukraine and tortured by Vladimir Putin 's brutal regime.
The body bag she was sent home in marked the corpse as an 'unidentified male'.
DNA testing confirmed the emaciated body - with her head shaved and a neck bone broken - was Roshchyna.
There were 'numerous signs of torture and cruel treatment', said on the body, said representative of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, Yuriy Bielousov.
Ukrainian investigators found burn marks on her feet, likely traces of electric shock, and a broken rib, reported independent news outlet Important Stories.
She had vanished into Putin's penal hell in 2023 on a reporting mission inside Ukraine's occupied territories.
Her internal organs were likely missing in a crude attempt to hide the torture which is routine in the Russian system.
'The larynx can be important evidence in cases of strangulation,' an expert told the news outlet.
'When a person is strangled, the hyoid bone [in the neck] is often broken.
'Haemorrhages can be found in the whites of the eyes, and oxygen deprivation can be detected in the brain.'
Former POWs held with Roshchyna - who worked for digital media Hromadske TV and other outlets - said she was detained in Energodar in the summer of 2023 and three days later transported to Melitopol, where she was held captive for four months and subjected to torture.
From here, she went to Taganrog's SIZO-2 - likened to a concentration camp - in a critical condition.
She had fevers, her menstruation stopped, and she suffered from abdominal pain.
Yet she still defied her captors, telling guards: 'You are occupiers, you came to our country, you kill our people... I will never cooperate with you!'
A former inmate said: 'Even the word 'concentration camp' would be too mild for SIZO-2.'
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