Officials under Aleksandr Shtoda alleged to systematically torture and starve detainees at Sizo 2 in Taganrog
The director of Russia’s notorious Taganrog prison, where officials are accused of overseeing the systematic torture and starvation of hundreds of Ukrainian detainees, has been notified by authorities in Kyiv that he is suspected of having committed a war crime.
Ukraine’s national police service and its chief war crimes prosecutor announced on Thursday that Aleksandr Shtoda, head of the Sizo 2 pre-trial detention centre in Taganrog, had been formally placed under investigation.
Shtoda was identified by the Viktoriia Project, an investigation by the Guardian and other reporting partners into the death in Russian captivity of the journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who was seized while working undercover in the occupied territories and transferred to Taganrog, where she spent nearly nine months.
She was last seen alive on 8 September 2024, and her body was repatriated earlier this year. Ukrainian investigators are still working to identify exactly where and how she died, although her remains showed numerous signs of torture. The announcement comes before Roshchyna’s funeral in Kyiv on Friday, and follows a decision by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to posthumously award her the Order of Freedom.
