Why Russia refuses to release journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna's body: Ukraine's POW headquarters weighs in

Yahoo

22-02-2025

Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War is working to recover the body of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died in Russian captivity.
Source: Bohdan Okhrimenko, Head of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, in an interview with Ukrinform news agency
Details: Okhrimenko suggested that Roshchyna's body has not been released since autumn 2024, as "there will be questions about the cause of her death".
"I'm not saying this, but I'm assuming. In order to conceal the cause of death, you need to keep the body in inappropriate conditions for as long as possible. Any forensic expert will tell you that.
We're trying to convince the other side to hand it over. After that, we'll be able to say something [about the time and cause of her death – ed.], now we are only making assumptions," Okhrimenko said.
He notes that the Coordination Headquarters has made repeated requests for Roshchyna's release from captivity, but the Russians continue to delay the process.
"After a lengthy dialogue last autumn, we received a response from the Russians indicating they seemed ready to hand her over. However, they postponed the date of her release several times. During that period, there were multiple exchanges. On 24 August, we brought back our conscripts from Russia. There were two consecutive exchanges on 13 and 14 September, one of which included civilians. For some reason, the Russian side did not agree to hand her over on that day," he noted.
The Coordination Headquarters urged the Russians to set a date for Viktoriia's release. Okhrimenko said this would not have necessarily required an exchange; it could have been arranged as a mutual swap of civilians through the human rights commissioners of Ukraine, Dmytro Lubinets, and Russia, Tatiana Moskalkova.
"We told them [the Russians] to set a date and we could take the necessary measures. We have the experience. But they said they would hand over Viktoriia during the next swap. However, that next time never came, as we later received information that she had died. They did not inform us of this, but it was revealed through a lawyer hired by her father.
On that day, there was an exchange of civilians and we had hoped she would be included, but sadly... The next swap took place on 18 October, when those sentenced to life imprisonment were brought back," says Okhrimenko.
Background:
Viktoriia Roshchyna's death was confirmed on 10 October 2024. On that day, her family received a letter from the Russian Ministry of Defence stating that she had died on 19 September.
At the time, Ukraine's Defence Intelligence noted that Viktoriia was soon to be brought back to Ukraine, as she was on the exchange list. Law enforcement officials classified the criminal proceedings regarding Roshchyna's disappearance as a war crime, coupled with premeditated murder.
Viktoriia Roshchyna disappeared on 3 August 2023 while reporting from Russian-occupied territory, where she was working to shine a light on the lives of people living under occupation. For a long time, nothing was known about her fate.
It was not until May 2024 that Russia admitted to having detained Roshchyna. The Russian Defence Ministry sent a letter confirming this to her father, Volodymyr Roshchyn.
It was the second time that Viktoriia had been held in captivity. She was first captured by the Russians in March 2022. Roshchyna was held for 10 days in Berdiansk.
In 2022, Roshchyna wrote a series of reports for Ukrainska Pravda from the temporarily occupied territories. Notably, she covered life in occupied Crimea during the war, the sham referendum held in occupied Donetsk Oblast, and presented a photo report from the destroyed Mariupol.
Read also: Journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna killed in captivity: a tribute through 7 of her best articles
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