President Trump’s emphasis on the release of hostages held in Gaza, Venezuela, and elsewhere is raising hopes for the family of an abducted 38-year-old Russian-Israeli woman, Elizabeth Tsurkov, who has been nearly forgotten after being held for nearly two years by an Iran-back militia in American-allied Iraq. 

Ms. Tsurkov, a Princeton doctoral candidate, was kidnapped at Baghdad, where she was doing research, writing essays, and posting on social media under the handle @elizrael. Following two years that saw little help from Washington, there is now a “refreshing change in tone,” her sister, Emma, tells the Sun. She spoke a day after the Trump administration made the first official American statement on Ms. Tsurkov since she was kidnapped. 

“Elizabeth Tsurkov is a Princeton student held hostage in Iraq,” Mr. Trump’s envoy for hostages, Adam Boehler, wrote on X Wednesday night. “The @IraqiPMO consistently made false promises to the prior administration about releasing her,” he added. “BUT NOW @realDonaldTrump IS ON TO YOU! If @elizrael does not come home NOW then @IraqiPMO is either incapable and should be FiRED or worse COMPLICIT. Bring Elizabeth home now!”

Back in March 2023, Emma Tsurkov texted to her sister a photo of her infant son wiggling his toes. Elizabeth Tsurkov was working at Baghdad on her Ph.D. thesis for Princeton. “Elizabeth is obsessed with him and his cute baby toes,” Ms. Tsurkov says, speaking from her California home.

The sisters were constantly texting each other, so “when 12 hours passed and she didn’t respond, I knew that something must be wrong,” Ms. Tsurkov says. Elizabeth had surgery a few days earlier, and Emma was concerned that something bad had happened. She called Baghdad hospitals frantically, to no avail. Then, worse news arrived. 

An Iranian-backed terrorist group announced that it had captured Elizabeth Tsurkov. Her only sign of life since then was a video broadcast on Iraqi television in November 2023, in which a pale Ms. Tsurkov was reading an obviously dictated message and saying she was a Mossad and CIA agent.

Ms. Tsurkov is widely believed to be held by an anti-American Iraqi Shiite militia, Kataib Hezbollah. Three Princeton sponsors encouraged her to travel to Iraq for her thesis, researching a rival Shiite group, headed by Muqtada al-Sadr. Yet, the New Jersey university did little to fight for her release, her sister and friends in Israel tell the Sun. 

Nor did the Biden administration. When Prime Minister al-Sudani of Iraq conducted a press conference at Washington last April, Emma Tsurkov shouted a question about her sister. He hardly responded.

“But I pay taxes in America,” Emma Tsurkov, a U.S. resident, says, and Iraq is a recipient of “substantial military and financial assistance from the U.S., which means that the U.S. government has tremendous leverage.” Yet, the Biden administration did little to use that leverage. 

In fact, Mr. Biden waived billions of dollars in Iran sanctions several times to facilitate Iraqi imports of gas and electricity from the Islamic Republic. “Baghdad is an Iranian laundry machine” for evading sanctions, an Iraq researcher at Tel Aviv’s Dayan Center, Ronen Zeidel, who has been following the Tsurkov affair closely, tells the Sun.

“Under Iranian pressure, Washington blocked an energy project from the Gulf countries, which could have undermined the Iraqi dependence on Tehran,” Mr. Zeidel says. America, he adds, has a lot of influence on Iraq, where the dollar is top currency and American military aid is crucial to keeping the government in power. Yet, he says, “we heard nothing from the Biden administration about Tsurkov.”

Mr. Trump issued an executive order ending waivers that allowed Baghdad to transfer billions of dollars to Tehran for Iraq’s energy needs. “The Iraqis are shaking in fear now, so this is the time to move things and get Elizabeth released,” Mr. Zeidel says.

Emma Tsurkov says she, too, is encouraged. “It seems like for the new administration, releasing hostages is a top priority,” she says. “There is more progress in the past two weeks than in the two years prior.” She worries that her sister received little medical attention since the back surgery just before her abduction. “Elizabeth could be paralyzed from the waist down,” she says. “She needs to be released fast.”

Jerusalem has tried to work through back channels to free its kidnapped citizen, but it has little influence over Baghdad, which considers Israel an enemy state. Ms. Tsurkov, though, is the only hostage currently held in an American-allied country, and Mr. Trump seems eager to finally use leverage on Baghdad.