The European Union has imposed sanctions against Russian prison officials responsible for the death of the Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna.
Roshchyna was reporting on Russia’s systematic policy of extrajudicial detention and torture in occupied parts of Ukraine, before falling victim to it herself. She died at the age of 27 last year after more than a year in Russian captivity. Her body was returned earlier this year with some of the internal organs missing.
Roshchyna’s death in captivity was investigated earlier this year by the Viktoriia Project, a consortium including the Guardian, Ukrainska Pravda and other reporting partners.
Sources close to the official Ukrainian investigation disclosed to the Viktoriia Project that examination of Roshchyna’s body after its repatriation earlier this year showed the hyoid bone in her neck was broken, damage that can occur during strangulation. Her body was also returned with the brain, eyes and larynx removed.
Roshchyna spent nearly nine months imprisoned at pre-trial detention centre number 2 in the city of Taganrog, which was repurposed as a holding centre for Ukrainian detainees and has been identified as one of the worst places for torture and mistreatment.
The sanctions list includes senior officials from the Rostov region’s penitentiary service where Roshchyna was held, including its head, Andrei Polyakov, the chief of Taganrog’s remand prison No 2, Aleksandr Shtoda, and his deputies Andrei Mikhailichenko and Andrei Sapitsky.
European officials say the men bear responsibility for the torture and deaths of 15 detainees at the remand prison.
Those placed on the list face an asset freeze, and EU citizens and companies are barred from making funds available to them. They are also subject to an EU-wide travel ban, preventing them from entering or transiting through the bloc.
In August, Roshchyna was posthumously awarded the Order of Freedom by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She received it “for her unwavering belief that freedom will overcome everything”, Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The latest sanctions on Russian officials linked to the country’s war machine come as Washington is pressuring Ukraine to accept a peace deal that reportedly includes provisions for a sweeping amnesty for Russia’s wartime actions, as well as the lifting of sanctions on Moscow.
