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VIEWPOINT - “Russians are even now hardly trying to hide what they did to her.”
These chilling words from Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Ukrainian human rights lawyer, refer to the fate of reporter Viktoriia Roshchyna, a woman who risked everything to expose the truth and paid with her life. Her story is not just a footnote in the war on Ukraine. It’s a warning flare for the rest of us.
In the summer of 2023, Roshchyna traveled to Russian-occupied territory to investigate enforced disappearances. She was abducted, tortured, and secretly transported into Russia, where she was illegally detained. Her weight dropped to 66 pounds. She received no medical care. She died in captivity. When her body was returned, it bore signs of severe torture. Her brain, eyes, and part of her trachea were missing.
This was not a rogue atrocity. It was the consequence of a state policy aimed at erasing Ukrainian identity and silencing dissent, by any means necessary.
According to an April 2025 investigation by the Viktoriia Project—a collaboration between The Guardian, Le Monde, and The Washington Post—Russia currently holds over 16,000 Ukrainian civilians without formal charges. Their so-called crime? "Opposing the special military operation"—a phrase with no legal standing, even under Russian law. In over 180 detention sites across occupied Ukraine and Russia, detainees report beatings, electric shocks, dog attacks, and psychological torture. At least 695 methods of torture have been catalogued.
This isn’t law enforcement. It’s state terror.
And it’s unfolding against the backdrop of a dangerously naïve global narrative, one that frames Crimea as a “settled” dispute. It is not.
In 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea, violating international law and the sovereign borders of Ukraine. The UN General Assembly responded with Resolution 68/262, reaffirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity. It passed with 100 votes in favor. Only 11 countries opposed it, mostly autocracies and client states.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea has never been internationally recognized, not by the U.S., not by the European Union, not by any institution committed to democratic norms. Yet, more than a decade later, global fatigue has begun to blur the line between de facto control and de jure legitimacy.
That is how empires win: not by argument, but by attrition.
For the residents of occupied Crimea, including Crimean Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians, journalists, and activists, this ambiguity comes at a brutal cost. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has condemned the Russian occupation, demanding an immediate restoration of Ukrainian law and the release of political prisoners. Still, the detentions, disappearances, and torture continue.
What happens in Crimea may seem distant from the streets of Los Angeles, but the stakes are universal. International law doesn’t only protect borders, it protects people. And when it is ignored or selectively applied, every vulnerable population becomes more exposed.
If we normalize the erasure of a sovereign nation’s territory by military force, we set a precedent that authoritarian regimes everywhere are watching. Taiwan. Kosovo. The West Bank. The Baltics. The list goes on.
This is not merely a geopolitical chess match. It is a test of whether principles like sovereignty, human rights, and truth still mean anything when the cost of defending them becomes inconvenient.
Occupation is not ownership. And silence is not neutrality—it is complicity.
The story of Crimea is still being written, in courtrooms, in underground detention cells, and in the legacy of those like Viktoriia Roshchyna, who dared to bear witness. Her name should not disappear into the fog of war. It should be remembered as a call to action for journalists, for lawmakers, and for citizens of every democracy who believe that justice must be defended, not deferred.
Because if the world fails to stand by its own laws, the next annexation won’t be a matter of if, but when.
(George Cassidy Payne, M.A., M.T.S., is a freelance journalist and adjunct philosophy professor whose work explores the moral architecture of war, faith, and human rights. A seasoned crisis counselor and peace educator, his essays and reporting have appeared in Common Dreams, CounterPunch, The Buffalo News, Rochester CITY Newspaper, and other outlets nationwide.)
