An Israeli-Russian graduate student from Princeton University in New Jersey who was kidnapped by a Shiite militia in Iraq in 2023 has been released from captivity and is now in US custody, US President Donald Trump and the student’s family said on Tuesday.
While Iraq said a “group of outlaws” kidnapped Elizabeth Tsurkov, Trump announced she was released by the powerful pro-Iran Kataeb Hezbollah militia group.
“As a culmination of extensive efforts exerted by our security services over the course of many months, we announce the release of the Russian citizen, Elizabeth Tsurkov,” Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said on X, without noting her Israeli citizenship.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Tsurkov “was just released” by Kataeb Hezbollah “after being tortured for many months” and was now at the US embassy in Baghdad.
Sabah al-Numan, the military spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, said later in a statement that “following extensive and high-level security and intelligence efforts… authorities succeeded, on September 9, in locating and reaching the site of her detention.”
Tsurkov was delivered to the US embassy to “facilitate her reunion with her sister, a US citizen,” he added.
Numan also said Tsurkov was kidnapped by a “group of outlaws” without naming any party, and stated that Iraq’s security forces “will continue to pursue all those involved in this crime and ensure they are held accountable.”
Tsurkov’s sister, Emma, a US citizen who has campaigned for her release, said she was in Washington for meetings this week when she heard the news from Adam Boehler, the US special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.
The sisters were able to connect by phone and expect to be reunited in the next 24 hours, though the details were still being worked out, Emma Tsurkov said.
“I heard her voice for the first time in 2 1/2 years and still couldn’t believe it, and I just melted on the floor,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I heard her voice and she heard mine, and it was the most joyous experience of my life, and we both started sobbing and screaming.”
Emma Tsurkov also issued statements thanking Trump, Boehler, the US embassy in Baghdad and the non-profit group Global Reach for their roles in securing the release, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli hostage point man Gal Hirsch “for their dedication and determined leadership.”
“My entire family is incredibly happy. We cannot wait to see Elizabeth and give her all the love we have been waiting to share for 903 days,” she posted on social media. “If Adam had not made my sister’s return his personal mission, I do not know where we would be.”
Global Reach, which works for the release of Americans held in captivity abroad, said that Tsurkov had received a medical assessment at the American embassy in Baghdad.
Netanyahu later said he called Tsurkov’s family.
“Through teamwork led by Hostage and Missing Persons Coordinator Gal Hirsch, which lasted many long months and after great efforts, we succeeded in bringing about her release,” said Netanyahu.
“This evening I spoke with Emma and Avital her sisters, and in the emotional conversation I told them that all of Israel is happy to see her back home,” he continued.
“We will continue to fight with strength and determination until we bring all of our hostages back home — both the living and the fallen,” he said, referring to the 48 hostages still held by Palestinian terror groups in Gaza.
Hirsch issued a separate statement saying he spoke with Tsurkov and that “during her captivity she was aware of and heard about our efforts to return her. This is a priceless moment.”
Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University and fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, went missing in Iraq in March 2023.
She had likely entered Iraq on her Russian passport and had travelled to the country as part of her doctoral studies.
She was active on Twitter, where she has tens of thousands of followers and describes herself as “passionate about human rights.”
In Baghdad, she had focused on pro-Iran factions and the movement of Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr as part of her research on the region.
She was abducted as she was leaving a cafe in the Iraqi capital’s Karrada neighborhood, an Iraqi intelligence source told AFP in 2023.
Israeli authorities blamed Kataeb Hezbollah for her disappearance, but the US-designated terror group implied that it was not involved.
Kataeb Hezbollah did not claim in 2023 the abduction, but a source in the group told AFP Tuesday Tsurkov was released to spare Iraq any “conflicts.”
She “was released according to conditions, the most important of which was to facilitate the withdrawal of US forces without a fight and to spare Iraq any conflicts or fighting,” the source said.
“She was released and not liberated. No military operation was carried out to free her,” the source added.
Like other armed groups trained by Iran during the war against the Islamic State group (IS), Kataeb Hezbollah were integrated into the regular security forces as part of the Hashed al-Shaabi or the Popular Mobilization force (PMF).
However, the faction has developed a reputation for sometimes acting on its own.
The group and other Iran-backed Iraqi factions have been calling for the withdrawal of US troops deployed in Iraq at Baghdad’s invitation as part of the anti-IS coalition.
US forces in Iraq and neighboring Syria were repeatedly targeted by Kataeb Hezbollah and other pro-Iran groups following the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.
They have responded with heavy strikes on Tehran-linked targets, and the attacks have halted.
The US and Iraq have announced that the anti-IS coalition would end its decade-long military mission in federal Iraq in 2025, and by September 2026 in the autonomous Kurdistan region in the country’s north.