A Princeton University graduate student who was kidnapped and held captive by an Islamic militia in Iraq for more than two years was released on Tuesday.
Elizabeth Tsurkov — a Russian-Israeli citizen — was released by the Kataib Hezbollah group, a Shia paramilitary group aligned with Iran, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social.
Tsurkov had been “tortured for many months,” Trump said.
The release came after “extensive efforts exerted by our security services over the course of many months.” Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said on X.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement: “I spoke this evening with Elizabeth’s mother and Avital, her sisters, and in the emotional conversation I told them that the entire people of Israel are happy to see her home again.”
Netanyahu added that his defense coordinator Gal Hirsch led the operation that freed her.
According to New Lines magazine, which was in contact with Tsurkov prior to her capture in Baghdad, she was in Iraq to carry out fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation. Tsurkov is also a fellow at the New Lines Institute, a global affairs think tank in Washington.
Tsurkov’s sister Emma, a researcher at Stanford University, told NBC News in a statement in 2023: “My sister is a brave, compassionate and brilliant person who was in Iraq to study its people, society, and politics as part of her dissertation at Princeton until she was abducted.”
She entered Iraq using her Russian passport on Jan. 28, 2023, according to Amnesty International, which has campaigned for her release.
Tsurkov’s capture had long been a concern among U.S. lawmakers who have repeatedly called for increased efforts to secure her release. She has more than a decade’s experience carrying out research across the Middle East and has volunteered for human rights groups.
Her doctoral research specifically covered the sectarian conflict between the Sadrist and Tishreen movements in Iraq.
Democratic senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker said in a letters months after her kidnapping in 2023 that Tsurkov was in a “uniquely vulnerable position” as Iraq has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel, and Russia had made no efforts to free her because she had criticized the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
