It has been almost three months since Victoria Roshchyna's family and colleagues received any word from the award-winning Ukrainian journalist.
Roshchyna, who is known for her courageous reporting on Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, disappeared shortly after passing a checkpoint. Friends and colleagues believe Russian forces detained her. The reporter had quickly pivoted from covering court cases to reporting from the front lines when Russian forces invaded her home country. As a freelance journalist, she has written for publications that include the Ukrainian news websites Hromadske and Ukrainska Pravda, as well as the broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Roshchyna told the stories of children killed in Dnipro and Berdyansk. She spoke to survivors of a missile strike in Uman and reported from Mariupol, where Russian occupiers staged a celebration in front of ruined houses. She interviewed soldiers and civilians, putting a human face to the brutality of war. But covering these stories came with great personal risk. On March 5, 2022, the car that Roshchyna was traveling in was shot at by Russian forces. She and the driver managed to escape and seek shelter in a nearby house. Roshchyna's camera and laptop were stolen from the car, according to reports from the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit. Less than a week later, Russian security agents detained Roshchyna. She was held for 10 days, hit and threatened.She detailed the experience for Hromadske, writing, "I didn't feel fear … there was only despair over the unknown and wasted time, the inability to do my job." "The fact that she was detained by Russian soldiers and lived through that experience and went back and kept reporting as if that never happened certainly shows an incredible amount of courage and tenacity and a journalist who's willing to risk everything to report the news," said Elisa Lees Munoz, executive director of the International Women's Media Foundation, or IWMF. The IWMF in 2022 awarded Roshchyna its Courage Award for her coverage of the war. One year on from presenting that award, Munoz and others are advocating for Roshchyna's release. "To disappear somebody is one of the worst things that one can do," Munoz said. "It's certainly intended to send a message to others — we can do that to anybody."
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