Latest news with #VictoriaRoshchyna
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A minerals deal won't stop Russia's war
News of Victoria Roshchyna's brutal death at the hands of Russian captors shocked Ukraine and the world last week. Her body was returned mutilated — eyes gouged out, brain removed — bearing evidence of unspeakable brutality. It wasn't an accident of war. It was a signature of it. This is what Russia does — and has done since its 2014 invasion of Ukraine. A day after the world discovered what had happened to Roshchyna, the White House celebrated a long-awaited minerals deal signed with Kyiv. As diplomacy took center stage in Washington, the killing on the ground continued, unrelenting and unpunished. This disconnect between gestures in D.C. and violence in Ukraine speaks to a deeper problem: the U.S. still treats Russia's criminal war of choice like a policy dilemma to be managed, not a strategic threat to be dealt with decisively before it spreads further. Since President Donald Trump took office, the policy of carrots for the victim and sticks for the aggressor has morphed into a cold shoulder for Ukraine and olive branches for Russia. The Kremlin has torched every one of them, treating overtures from the White House not as goodwill to reciprocate but as weakness to exploit. In March, Ukrainian civilian casualties surged by 50% compared to February and by 70% compared to March 2024. A missile strike on a playground in April killed 18 people, including nine children. The UN now reports near-daily attacks on civilian areas. This isn't peacemaking — it's sadism in slow motion. For eleven years since Russia first invaded, successive U.S. Administrations have failed to grasp that there is no 'conflict' in Ukraine — no tension between two sides with competing claims. Such framing is deeply flawed. Just as there wasn't a 'conflict' in Poland in 1939 when the Nazis invaded from the west and the Soviets from the east. Poland didn't need mediation between Warsaw and Berlin. It required help driving out the invaders. Eighty years ago, the world learned — and then promptly forgot — a hard lesson: Unchecked aggression only grows stronger with time. America tried to stay out of the war. At the time, that seemed wise, even noble. But history proved otherwise: Wishing for peace isn't enough. The war came to Europe first, and eventually reached American shores. Unchecked aggression only grows stronger with time. Not our war, some say. Quite right — it's Russia's war: soaked in the blood of innocents, justified by lies, and led by a venal thug. But Ukraine's dogged refusal to surrender reminds us what a fight for freedom actually looks like. And when we choose comfort over courage, don't be surprised when the revanchist dictators come knocking closer to home. The United States can and must stop signaling weakness and start acting with resolve — arming Ukraine, isolating Moscow, and demanding that war criminals be held accountable. Then it can once again claim to be the leader of the free world. But instead, Washington is taking the bait, sending envoys to shake hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and falling for the same Soviet-era tactics it spent half a century trying to contain. Meanwhile, Moscow is drawing America's rivals and enemies into its criminal war effort. It began with artillery from Pyongyang. Now, thousands of North Korean troops have been spotted in Russian trenches. Iranian drones continue to rain on Ukrainian cities. Chinese nationals have been captured on the battlefield, fighting for Moscow. Alliances are being forged, and every one of them pulls America's adversaries deeper into a war Russia claims to want to end. If this isn't a provocation, what is? In the United States, we judge new presidents by what they accomplish in their first 100 days. In Russia, the yardstick is a little different: how much a newly minted despot can destroy in his first twenty years. Given the dismal standards set by tsars and commissars, Putin is a resounding mediocrity, yet a danger to the world. Instead of pressuring the aggressor, Washington is threatening to walk away from negotiations altogether. What kind of ultimatum is that? Ukraine wants peace more than we will ever know. It agreed to an unconditional ceasefire within 24 hours and accepted the minerals deal. All Ukraine wants is to be left in peace, not in pieces. Russia, meanwhile, has spent nearly two months dodging that same unconditional truce that the White House put on the table. Even an agreement that heavily favors Russia, while offering Ukraine little, has been met with silence and bad faith. Moscow's objectives remain unchanged: domination through violence, imperial expansion, and erasure of Ukraine. And yet the White House treats Ukraine as an unreliable partner. This is self-sabotage wrapped with a bow as diplomacy is a flashing signal of American weakness for the whole world to see. The minerals deal was originally conceived as a mechanism to 'collect' repayment for aid, and looked more like a shakedown than a strategic partnership. The final version, stripped of its worst elements, may have merit as a long-term investment. But its timing and prominence, set against fresh atrocities and America's ceasefire efforts rejected by Russia, make it more of a distraction than a deterrent. We are not ending a war — we are indulging a war criminal. And the longer we pretend this is a conflict to be negotiated, rather than a criminal aggression to be terminated, the more respect — and security — we will lose. Submit an Opinion Read also: As Russia trains abducted children for war, Ukraine fights uphill battle to bring them home We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
The Citizen
05-05-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
Journalism is under attack
The press are an easy target for anyone with things to hide. Saturday was World Press Freedom Day. Who cares? Every year, we hear it: some 124 journalists killed in the past year, most recently the 27-year-old Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, captured in 2023, disappeared into Russia and finally returned in a body bag last week, her corpse marked with torture. An old tale. Tragic, but not unexpected. But there's something else going on: increasingly, journalism itself is under attack. Nowadays, most people feel about journalists much the same as they do about ambulance-chasing lawyers and insurance salesmen. Pushy. Untrustworthy. Preying on the weak. Never met one I much cared for. Only good one is a dead one, ha ha ha. ALSO READ: The battle for SA journalism This in itself says a lot about how the world has changed. Journalism has become a byword for corrupt, for dodgy, for detestable, for everything journalism is generally not. I know this first-hand. I've worked in the field for 30 years. Yet the press are an easy target for anyone with things to hide. If you don't like what they're saying, call into question those who say it. Why bother to refute, to defend, or to prove them wrong when you can simply say they're lying puppets for your enemies? Or cut them off entirely. It's a playbook used most effectively by autocrats and wannabes, Donald Trump, naturally, but also everyone from Vladimir Putin to Viktor Orban, the Chinese Communist Party to Narendra Modi, Italy's Giorgia Meloni to our own Jacob Zuma. ALSO READ: Independent Media's expulsion: A stand for responsible journalism They point fingers, cry foul and 'fake news', block, undermine, threaten and sue. At best, they control the flow of information so that they control the narrative. But journalists will tell other stories. Herding journalists is like herding cats. Don't get me wrong. Doing what they do – or should do – journalists will never be universally loved. They ask challenging questions, dig where they're not wanted, demand accountability, expose ineptitude, and rip bandages off open wounds. Truth-telling is not a route to popularity, even more so when you're doing it for a living. And yes, the press will sometimes get it wrong. But the only thing they are universally guilty of is perhaps a hard-won measure of cynicism, coupled with a passion that has been there since the beginning, when we were cub reporters working for a pittance and maybe a byline, dreaming our words might help build a fairer world. READ NEXT: The impact of censorship by silence on journalism
Telegraph
01-05-2025
- Telegraph
Torture signs on Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian captivity
The body of a Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian captivity showed signs of torture, including electric shocks, and was missing organs when it was returned to Ukraine by Moscow. Victoria Roshchyna, 27, was held incommunicado for months after going missing on a reporting trip in a Russian-occupied region of Ukraine in August 2023. Her corpse was returned as part of a February body exchange involving 757 dead Ukrainians, labelled incorrectly as 'an unidentified male' who died of heart failure. She was identified by DNA analysis in Ukraine. Ms Roshchyna's brain, eyeballs, and part of her windpipe were found to be missing after a Russian autopsy, her former colleagues at the Ukrainska Pravda news organisation, said. They said it could be an effort by Moscow to disguise her cause of death. Ukrainian prosecutors said forensic examination exposed 'numerous signs of torture and ill-treatment… including abrasions and haemorrhages on various parts of the body, a broken rib and possible traces of electric shock'. Yuriy Belousov, who heads the war crimes department at the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, said experts had established the injuries were sustained while Ms Roshchyna was still alive. Investigators said that a bruise was found on her neck, along with a suspected fracture of the hyoid bone, which is a common indicator of strangulation. Mr Belousov said that the state of the body made it impossible to determine the cause of death, but Ukraine was working with international forensic experts to get more answers. Ms Roshchyna was deported from occupied Ukraine into Russia, where she was held without charge or trial. Thousands of other Ukrainian civilians have suffered a similar fate. Her father raised the alarm when she stopped responding to his messages while on assignment. Moscow admitted it was holding her nine months later. By September 2024, she was dead, but her family did not find out until they were notified by Russia a month later. She reportedly died while being transferred from a notorious detention facility in the southern Russian city of Taganrog to Moscow in preparation for her release as part of a prisoner exchange.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
Torture signs on Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian captivity
The body of a Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian captivity showed signs of torture, including electric shocks, and was missing organs when it was returned to Ukraine by Moscow. Victoria Roshchyna, 27, was held incommunicado for months after going missing on a reporting trip in a Russian-occupied region of Ukraine in August 2023. Her corpse was returned as part of a February body exchange involving 757 dead Ukrainians, labelled incorrectly as 'an unidentified male' who died of heart failure. She was identified by DNA analysis in Ukraine. Ms Roshchyna's brain, eyeballs, and part of her windpipe were found to be missing after a Russian autopsy, her former colleagues at the Ukrainska Pravda news organisation, said. They said it could be an effort by Moscow to disguise her cause of death. Ukrainian prosecutors said forensic examination exposed 'numerous signs of torture and ill-treatment… including abrasions and haemorrhages on various parts of the body, a broken rib and possible traces of electric shock'. Yuriy Belousov, who heads the war crimes department at the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, said experts had established the injuries were sustained while Ms Roshchyna was still alive. Investigators said that a bruise was found on her neck, along with a suspected fracture of the hyoid bone, which is a common indicator of strangulation. Mr Belousov said that the state of the body made it impossible to determine the cause of death, but Ukraine was working with international forensic experts to get more answers. Ms Roshchyna was deported from occupied Ukraine into Russia, where she was held without charge or trial. Thousands of other Ukrainian civilians have suffered a similar fate. Her father raised the alarm when she stopped responding to his messages while on assignment. Moscow admitted it was holding her nine months later. By September 2024, she was dead, but her family did not find out until they were notified by Russia a month later. She reportedly died while being transferred from a notorious detention facility in the southern Russian city of Taganrog to Moscow in preparation for her release as part of a prisoner exchange. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Yahoo
Body of Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian detention returned by Moscow with signs of torture and with missing organs
The body of a young Ukrainian woman who died in Russian captivity after being held incommunicado for months was returned to Ukraine showing signs of torture, Ukrainian prosecutors have said. Kyiv said the remains of journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who went missing during a reporting trip, were returned as part of a body exchange between Ukraine and Russia in February. Yuriy Belousov, who heads the war crimes department at the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, said that forensic examination found 'numerous signs of torture and ill-treatment… including abrasions and hemorrhages on various parts of the body, a broken rib and possible traces of electric shock.' He said the experts have determined the injuries were sustained while Roshchyna was still alive. Russia is known to use electric shocks as a method of torture against detained Ukrainians, and the widespread nature of the practice was documented by CNN in the past. Belousov said that repeated DNA analyses confirmed the body belonged to Roshchyna, even though it reportedly arrived from Russia labeled as 'an unidentified male.' He said the state of the body made it impossible to determine the cause of Roshchyna's death, but added that Ukraine was working with international forensic experts to get more answers. Roshchyna's colleagues at Ukrainska Pravda said her body was returned from Russia with missing organs. Citing members of the investigating team who handled her remains, they said the brain, eyeballs and part of the trachea, or windpipe, were missing, in what they said could have been an attempt by Russia to disguise the cause of death. CNN has reached out to the Russian Federal Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova and to the Russian penitentiary services for comment. Roshchyna went missing in August 2023. Her colleagues said the reporter went to a Russian-held part of Ukraine – a dangerous ordeal for any Ukrainian – to report on the lives of people living under occupation. Journalist Evgeniya Motorevskaya, who worked with Roshchyna as the former editor of Hromadske, a Ukrainian media outlet, said the young reporter was determined to do her job as best as she could. 'For her, there was nothing more important than journalism. Vika was always where the most important events for the country took place. And she would have continued to do this for many years, but the Russians killed her,' she said in a statement published on Hromadske's website when Roshchyna's death was first announced, referring to her by her diminutive. Roshchyna's father first raised the alarm when she stopped responding to messages while on the assignment, but her family had no idea about her whereabouts until nine months later, when Moscow finally admitted it was holding her in detention. Like thousands of other Ukrainian civilians, Roshchyna was snatched by Russian authorities in occupied Ukraine and deported into Russia where she was held without charge or trial. By September 2024, Roshchyna, a healthy 27-year old, was dead – although her family didn't find out until about a month later, when they received a notification from Russia. Petro Yatsenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said in October that Roshchyna died while being transferred from a detention facility in the southern Russian city of Taganrog to Moscow. He said the transfer was in preparation for her release as part of a prisoner exchange. The detention facility in Taganrog is known for its cruel treatment of detainees. CNN has previously spoken to prisoners held there, who described being subjected to physical and psychological abuse, being given insufficient amounts of food and denied access to basic health care. Reporters with Ukrainska Pravda have partnered up with journalists from more than a dozen international media after her death was announced, to try to piece together what happened to her during the last few months of her life. They interviewed dozens of prisoners, as well as prison guards and human rights defenders. They were able to trace her movements and describe the brutality of her detention.
