Iryna Levchenko says she met Viktoria Roshchyna in Russia’s secret prison in Melitopol

Journalist Iryna Levchenko, held prisoner by Russia, says that Viktoria Roshchyna, another Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian custody later, was imprisoned along with her for a time in a secret Russian torture facility (known as the “pit”) in Melitopol.

Levchenko said this while testifying at a hearing of the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don. A transcript of her testimony was published by Mediazona.

Levchenko was questioned as a witness in the case against civilian prisoners Hennadiy and Olha Kapralov. She gave her testimony via video call while detained in PTDC-2 in Mariupol.

The journalist said she had spent several months in 2023 unofficially detained in a building that once housed a psychoneurological dispensary on Dzerzhynskoho Street in Melitopol.

Describing the conditions of her detention, Levchenko mentioned Viktoria Roshchyna.

“Olha [Kapralova] was first imprisoned in a room with another woman, a young woman — Viktoria Roshchyna. Viktoria died on the way to a prisoner swap in August 2024, I believe,” Levchenko said during the questioning.

The journalist described in detail the conditions of detention at the secret prison.

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• Iryna Levchenko reports torture in Russia-run Melitopol prison

“It’s a single-storey building, it was once a psychoneurological dispensary. People were brought there unofficially… They locked us in from behind. There were windows, double-glazed ones, but they were barred, and in late June this guy Arsen painted them over black from the outside,” Iryna Levchenko said.

Levchenko confirmed the prisoners had no official status or procedural rights.

“It was from Olha that we first learned that officially we hadn’t been detained at all… we found out that, apparently, we don’t officially exist anywhere. That this is the so-called ‘pit’ — and that we’re supposed to be at home, that we’re still home,” the journalist added.

Who is Iryna Levchenko

Iryna Levchenko and her husband Oleksandr were kidnapped in temporarily occupied Melitopol (Zaporizhia oblast) in May 2023. This information was confirmed by IMI’s own sources in the city. Iryna and her husband have been retired for several years. The occupiers detained the couple on the street, first keeping them together and then separating them.

As per RIA Pivden, Oleksandr Levchenko was released in August 2024. He had been imprisoned in occupied Melitopol the entire time. Upon release he was issued a document stating that he had served 21 day of administrative arrest for “curfew breach”. He was not given back the passport, credit cards, and money confiscared during search. After the detention, he only saw his wife once during a prison walk, but they were not allowed to talk.

It was reported in June 2026 that Iryna Levchenko had been moved from the pre-trial detention center in Simferopol to a prison in Krasnodar (Russia).

In September 2026, Iryna Levchenko was sentenced to 15 years in prison for “espionage” by a Russian court.

Iryna Levchenko has been a journalist since 1981. She worked for large-circulation newspapers, for the Melitopol district newspaper Novyi Den, was a correspondent for regional and national printed media.

Iryna Levchenko is on the Institute of Mass Information’s list of civilian journalists imprisoned by Russia.

The death of Viktoria Roshchyna

The death of Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna in Russian prison was reported on 10 October 2024. According to the letter sent to her family by Russia’s Ministry of Defense on 10 October, Victoria died on 19 September. Viktoria Roshchyna’s name was on the prisoner swap lists.

It was reported on 24 April 2025 that the body of Viktoria Roshchyna had been brought back to Ukraine in late February this year. She was identified through DNA testing.

The autopsy failed to identify the causes of Viktoria Roshchyna’s death due to the body’s state. However, numerous signs of torture were found on Viktoria’s body.

An investigation by Project Viktoria revealed that Viktoria Roshchyna’s body was listed in the documents as an “unidentified male” when Russia handed it over to Ukraine and had a single label of unclear meaning: SPAS. The examination found that some internal organs were missing from the body. In particular, the brain, eyeballs, and part of the trachea.

Slidstvo.Info discovered that Victoria Roshchyna was brutally tortured in Russian custody: there were stab wounds on her body, the journalist weighed under 30 kilograms, and Russian prison officers hid her from inspections. Viktoria was buried in Kyiv on 8 August 2025.