THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
A public screening of the documentary ‘Vika’s Last Task’ took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, on April 28. The film is dedicated to Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchina, who died in russian captivity.
The event was organized by the Embassy of Ukraine in South Africa and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden in South Africa in cooperation with the Ukrainian Association of South Africa and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists ICIJ.
The film was presented by Slidstvo.info journalist Yanina Korniyenko. The moderator was Micah Reddy, a ICIJ journalist and coordinator, in Africa. He stressed the critical situation with the safety of journalists in Ukraine due to the full-scale invasion
The Ambassador of Ukraine to South Africa, Oleksandr Shcherba, emphasized: “Victoria’s story reminds us that occupation is not peace, but the death of freedom and endless atrocities.”
The event brought together representatives of local media, journalistic organizations and human rights initiatives working in the field of freedom of speech. A professional discussion was held on the safety of journalists in conflict zones and responsibility for crimes against them.
Reference Information: Victoria Roshchina was a freelance journalist who in 2022 wrote reports for the Ukrayinska Pravda online publication from temporarily occupied territories – about the occupied Crimea, the pseudo-referendum in the Donetsk Region and the destroyed Mariupol.
She needed to get to the occupied territory again. Victoria left Ukraine for Poland on July 25, 2023, planning to reach eastern Ukraine through russia in 3 days.
The journalist disappeared on August 3, 2023, in the russian-occupied territory from where she was reporting.
In May 2024, russia acknowledged for the first time that it had detained Roshchina. The russian Defense Ministry sent a letter of confirmation to her father, Volodymyr Roshchin.
After waiting for more than a year for the exchange, in October 2024, the family received notification of her death in captivity. According to investigators, Victoria Roshchina died in pre-trial detention center No. 3 in the city of Kizel, Perm Krai, russia, on September 19, 2024. Her body was later returned to Ukraine. Before burial, a forensic medical examination recorded numerous injuries, including fractures and neck injuries. Ukrainian law enforcement officers reported the suspicion to the head of the detention center, Oleksandr Shtoda, in absentia.
On August 2, 2025, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded Victoria Roshchina the Order of Freedom (posthumously).
The investigative film by journalists Slidstvo.info ‘Vika’s Last Task’ won the National Investigative Journalism Competition in 2025. Slidstvo.info journalists, together with Reporters Without Borders, as well as colleagues from Suspilne and Graty, recreated Victoria’s journey in captivity, documented the conditions of detention, and collected eyewitness accounts.
NUJU Information Service
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