Russia returns journalist’s body without ‘eyeballs or brain’, report says

It's reported the state of her body means that it is impossible for a cause of death to be confirmed

The 27-year-old was captured in 2023 after she travelled to Zaporizhzhia in eastern Ukraine, which is occupied by Russia.

Nonprofit organisation Forbidden Stories into Roshchyna's death reports that she travelled to the region to report on Russian forces' illegal detention of Ukrainians.

Kyiv said her body was returned in Februrary during a body exchange between Ukraine and Russia.

However, Yuriy Belousov who leads the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office war crimes department, said her body showed “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.”

Belousov said that experts believed she sustained these injuries while she was still alive.

Although Roshchyna's body was returned labeled as 'an unidentified male', Belousov said repeated DNA analyses confirmed the body as belonging to the journalist.

He added that the state of her body means that it is impossible for a cause of death to be confirmed.

Roshchyna's colleagues, who worked alongside her at Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda, said that her body had been returned with missing organs.

They said that her brain, eyeballs, and part of her trachea were missing, citing members of the team investigating her death.

They added that this may have been Russia attempting to hide her cause of death.

Evgeniya Motorevskaya, who worked with Roshchyna at Ukrainian media outlet Hromadske, said the 27-year-old was determined to do the best job 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,” Motorevskaya wrote in a statement published online.

Roshchyna is reported to have died in September 2024, but her family didn't find out until a month later when Russia notified them.

Ukrainian Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War spokesperson Petro Yatsenko said that she died while being transferred from a detention facility in Taganrog to Moscow.

Taganrog's detention centre is known for its cruel treatment of prisoners, CNN reports.