Ukrainian authorities have opened a war crimes investigation into the director of a Russian prison where journalist Victoria Roshchyna was allegedly tortured before her death in captivity last year — a move press freedom advocates say is a crucial, if belated, step toward accountability.
On Thursday, August 7, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine and the national police announced they had begun proceedings in absentia against the director of Penal Colony No. 2 in Taganrog, in southwestern Russia. While officials have not publicly named him, the investigation targets Alexander Shtoda, who headed the facility during Roshchyna’s detention. He is accused of “ill-treatment of the civilian population committed by a group of persons following a prior conspiracy” — a charge that carries a possible 12-year prison sentence.
Taganrog prison is notorious among former inmates and rights groups for its use of torture against Ukrainian civilians and captured soldiers. Ukrainian investigators say Roshchyna, arrested in Russian-occupied Ukraine in August 2023, was subjected there to beatings, humiliation, threats, denial of medical care, and severe restrictions on food and water. Prosecutors allege the prison director personally ordered his staff to apply these pressures in an effort to force her cooperation.
A joint investigation by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Ukrainian outlet Slidstvo.info reconstructed the final months of Roshchyna’s life. By late 2024, she weighed just 30 kilograms. In February 2025, Russia returned her body – labeled “unidentified male” – as a part of a prisoner exchange. Forensic experts documented broken ribs, abrasions, hemorrhages, and possible signs of electric shocks — injuries sustained while she was still alive. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office says her remains were missing key organs, including her brain and eyes, raising suspicions of an attempt to obscure the cause of death.
The Kremlin has never provided an explanation for how Roshchyna died, nor responded to inquiries from RSF. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posthumously awarded her the Order of Freedom earlier this month, calling her a journalist who “never shied away from danger” in pursuit of the truth.
Colleagues describe Roshchyna as fearless. She had previously reported from front-line areas and under occupation, determined to document how war was reshaping lives. Evgeniya Motorevskaya, her former editor at Hromadske, said, “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.”
Roshchyna’s family lost contact with her in August 2023, it took months to learn that she was being held in Russia. By September 2024, she was dead — reportedly while being transferred from Taganrog to Moscow for a planned prisoner exchange.
With the investigation into the prison director underway, Ukraine says it intends to pursue justice — even if those responsible remain beyond its immediate reach.
