New details have emerged during the search for four U.S. Army soldiers who mysteriously vanished in Lithuania during a training exercise after the armored vehicle they operated was discovered “submerged in a body of water.”
The soldiers, all from the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, and an M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle were reported missing Tuesday during a tactical training exercise in Pabradė, a town near the Belarusian border and about 30 miles northeast of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Hundreds of personnel from the U.S. Army and Lithuanian Armed Forces—along with other state and private agencies—continued to search for the missing soldiers through Wednesday night, Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovilė Šakalienė told reporters Thursday morning.
The search and rescue operation involved water pumping and digging through a peat bog after the U.S. Army Europe and Africa announced Wednesday that the Hercules was discovered “in a body of water.”
Šakalienė revealed that the vehicle was found more than 15 feet deep in mud and that enough water had now been drained from the swamp to begin digging for it.
The minister said that other “positive signs” had emerged during the rescue efforts that “give hope for a quicker scenario.” He added that there is “no guarantee” that the soldiers were in the vehicle when it was submerged.
Raimundas Vaikšnoras, commander of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, told reporters: “It is not visible from the surface and it is difficult to feel it even with metal rods.”
Vaikšnoras said that high-pressure gas lines running through the area had complicated rescue efforts and that they needed to be switched off before heavy equipment could be used.
President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday he had not been briefed about the missing soldiers. It sparked anger among members of Congress as the president continued to brush off the Signalgate security breach, which was revealed Monday.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has since withdrawn his earlier comments in which he said that the four soldiers had been found dead.
“Whilst I was speaking the news came out about four American soldiers who were killed in an incident in Lithuania,” he initially said. “This is still early news so we do not know the details. This is really terrible news and our thoughts are with the families and loved ones.”
The alliance was then forced to apologize for the “confusion” caused and said that the deaths were not yet confirmed.
At the time of Rutte’s comments, the U.S. Army Europe and Africa command’s media division told The Independent the secretary general was speaking about seeing reports of deaths and that the U.S. military was “unable to confirm the deaths of the missing soldiers at this time.”
U.S. officials announced a search was underway for the service members earlier Wednesday.
The incident took place at a time of heightened tensions in Eastern Europe. Lithuania is a NATO member and ally of nearby Ukraine, while Belarus is aligned with Russia.
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