Four U.S. Army soldiers disappeared while on a training mission in Lithuania on Tuesday, prompting a search for their vehicle, which may have been submerged in a swamp, military officials said.
The soldiers, all from 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, had been conducting scheduled tactical training in a training area near Pabrade, a city in eastern Lithuania, near the border with Belarus, the U.S. military said.
The U.S. Army, Lithuanian Armed Forces, Lithuanian law enforcement officials and others were looking for the soldiers, the U.S. military said on Wednesday, adding that “search and recovery efforts are underway.”
The four soldiers were in an M88 Recovery Vehicle, essentially a giant Army tow truck that is designed to rescue disabled tanks from the battlefield, according to a U.S. Army official in Europe.
They had been sent out to bring back another heavy vehicle but may have driven off the road and into a swamp, the official said. The soldiers appeared to have been trapped inside as the M88 submerged, the official said.
The Lithuanian military said that the American soldiers and their vehicle were reported missing on Tuesday at about 4:45 p.m. It said that Air Force helicopters and other resources were being used to search a “potential accident site” in the Pabrade training area.
“For the moment, neither vehicle, nor soldiers or their bodies are rescued, the SAR operation is intensively ongoing,
“I would like to personally thank the Lithuanian Armed Forces and first responders who quickly came to our aid in our search operations,” Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza, commanding general of the V Corps, a U.S. Army unit that operates along NATO’s eastern flank, said in a statement on Wednesday. “It’s this kind of teamwork and support that exemplifies the importance of our partnership and our humanity regardless of what flags we wear on our shoulders.”
The U.S. military often conducts training missions in Lithuania, a NATO member and staunch ally of Ukraine in its war against Russia. Many of those exercises are held at the Pabrade training area, and involve soldiers from Lithuania and other NATO allies. Nearby Belarus is a close ally of Russia.
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