Now, a journey to freedom after more than 900 days in captivity.

Elizabeth Sarkov, a Russian-Israeli doctoral student at Princeton University, was conducting

research in Baghdad in 2003 when she was kidnapped and held by an Iran-linked militia for

more than two and a half years. Her release last September followed a high-stakes international push.

We sat down recently for her first American television interview.

Elizabeth Serkov, welcome to the NewsHour.

It's so good to see you here in person.

Thank you so much for having me.

So first and most importantly, you've been free for just a few months now.

How are you?

How are you feeling?

How are you doing?

Well, mentally, I feel I'm well.

Obviously, I'm in therapy, but I'm well, and I'm happy to be alive, and I appreciate things about life that I previously took for granted.

Like having windows in the room and being able to see what's outside and the sun and enjoying its warmth,

not here in DC, but in but in theory, in general.

And being with my loved ones and being, you know, able to say what I want and read what I want. And freedom is truly something you don't appreciate until you lose it.

And I didn't appreciate it.

Physically, I'm not great because of the torture.

All my joints are damaged. Now sitting, the knee hurts. On top of that, during the torture,

Katab Hezbollah, the militants who kidnapped me, herniated two discs in my back. so I'm sitting now with a belt to kind of

Hold it in to prevent the pain and a lot of the time I'm basically at home. I kind of

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