“Honor of the Profession – 2025”: journalist Victoria Roshchyna posthumously receives award
30 May 04:00
Kyiv has announced the winners of the prestigious Honor of the Profession 2025 professional journalism competition. Among the honorees is Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who died in Russian captivity. According to Suspilne, Roshchyna received a special award posthumously by the decision of the Supervisory Board of the competition, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports
Angelina Karyakina, co-founder of the Public Interest Journalism Laboratory, received the award for Victoria on stage. She will hand the award to the journalist’s parents.
27-year-old Victoria Roshchina is known for her fearless work – she has twice traveled to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to tell the world the truth about the crimes of the Russian military. She was detained for the first time in the spring of 2022, when she was filming reports in the occupied cities. Then she was released and returned to the government-controlled territory.
However, in August 2023, Roshchyna went back to the war zone, where she went missing. It was only in May 2024 that Russia officially confirmed that the journalist was in captivity. Subsequently, Victoria’s father received a tragic message from the Russian Ministry of Defense: his daughter had died. In late February 2025, Victoria’s body was handed over to Ukraine as part of a prisoner exchange.
How Victoria Roshchyna was taken prisoner
According to the Graty newspaper, Victoria Roshchyna left Ukraine for Poland on July 25, 2023, planning to enter Russia via Latvia and then enter the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. She wanted to collect material about the elections in the occupied territories, the consequences of the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, and the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Victoria didn’t seem to have an editorial assignment, but rather worked as a freelance journalist. She reached the occupied territories. The last time the informant saw her was on August 22 in Berdiansk, after which she planned to go to Melitopol. on August 27, Victoria canceled the planned meeting with the informant.
The last time she called her family was on August 4. Victoria described difficult checks at the Russian border and a sense of danger. Since then, contact with her has been lost. According to other reports, Victoria stopped contacting on August 3.
The SBU reported that she might be in captivity, but this information was unconfirmed.
on April 22, 2024, the journalist’s father, Vladimir, received a letter from the Russian Ministry of Defense confirming Victoria’s detention.
At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Roshchyna was already in Russian captivity from March 15 to 21, 2022. She was detained in occupied Berdiansk.
Victoria Roshchyna’s journalistic activities
As a journalist, Viktoria Roshchyna has worked with Radio Liberty, Ukrayinska Pravda, hromadske, Ukrainian Radio, UA:Pershyi, and Censor.net.
“I have been in journalism since I was 16. I specialize in crime, human rights and the judicial system. In March 2022, while trying to get to Mariupol, which was blocked by the Russian military, I was detained for a week by the occupiers on suspicion of espionage,”
– Victoria wrote about herself on the Radio Liberty website.
After the full-scale Russian invasion, she wrote, among other things, about life in the occupied territories, Russian war crimes, etc. One of Viktoriia’s materials about life in occupied Kherson can be read on the Radio Liberty website.
