Militants of the Shiite group «Kataib Hezbollah» released Princeton University researcher Elizabeth Tsurkova — a citizen of Russia and Israel, reported US President Donald Trump. She had been held hostage for more than two years.
«I am pleased to announce that Elizabeth Tsurkova, a Princeton student whose sister is a US citizen, has just been released from captivity by «Kataib Hezbollah» (the military wing of «Hezbollah») and is now safe at the US embassy in Iraq after many months of torture. I will always fight for justice and never give up. HAMAS, immediately release the hostages!" — said in a message from Trump, published on Truth Social.
Elizabeth Tsurkova was kidnapped in Iraq in March 2023, shortly before the researcher entered the country with a Russian passport to work on her doctoral dissertation.
In the fall of 2023, the Iraqi TV channel Al Rabiaa published a video with Tsurkova. In it, she claimed that since 2019 she had allegedly been traveling to Syria on assignments from Israeli and US intelligence services.