After a six-day search, authorities in Lithuania on Monday recovered a US military vehicle that sank deep into a swamp during a training exercise.
However, the recovery of the vehicle has not clarified the fate of the four US soldiers on board. The Lithuanian Defense Ministry said the investigation remains ongoing.
“After the operation to remove the armored vehicle from the swamp is completed, the Lithuanian Military Police and US investigators are continuing their work at the site,” the ministry wrote on social media.
“We will remain patient and focused as they gather more information about the situation.”
Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene said the towing operation was completed at 4:30 a.m. local time (0130 UTC) and that Lithuanian military police and US investigators were “currently working at the scene.”
“If the recovery of the vehicle does not provide all the answers, the work will have to continue,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
Sakaliene also made it clear to reporters that the first information about the soldiers’ fate will be provided by the US Army.
What do we know about the incident?
The four soldiers, all from 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, were taking part in a tactical training at a large training area in the eastern Lithuanian town of Pabrade, just 10 kilometers west of the border with Belarus. They and their M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle were reported missing in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the US Army said.
In response, the Lithuanian military and police launched a joint search operation with the US military. This eventually led to the location of the vehicle on Wednesday. Is was submerged in about 5 meters of water in a marshy area of the training area.
Hundreds of local and foreign troops and other rescue personnel, including engineers and divers, were involved in the rescue operation to recover the vehicle.
More than 1,000 American troops are stationed in Lithuania, a NATO and EU member, on a rotating basis.
Lithuania’s relations with Russia and with Belarus, a close ally of Moscow, have soured over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Edited by: Zac Crellin
