4 US soldiers still missing in Lithuania as NATO walks back death announcement while rescuers battle treacherous conditions: ‘Tragic situation’
A desperate search for four US Army soldiers missing in Lithuania is facing treacherous conditions as rescue crews focus on a swampy patch of land where their armored vehicle is submerged, military sources have said.
Engineers have built barriers made of dirt and sand as their search for the four soldiers near the city of Pabrade, just six miles from the border with Belarus, enters a third day.
“Due to the terrain, this is an incredibly complex engineering effort,” said Maj. Robin Bruce, 1st Armored Division Engineer. “The team on the ground is working to remove enough water and mud for rescue teams to safely reach, stabilize, and access the vehicle.
“Lithuanian and US Army engineers are currently pumping water and excavating mud from the site and making improvements to the surrounding area to support the heavy equipment needed for recovery,” Maj. Bruce added.
Engineers on the site have been constructing berms — barriers of dirt and sand taken from the nearby terrain — to dam off areas of water, which can then be dredged.
“This tragic situation weighs heavily on all of us and we’re keeping the families, friends and teammates of our soldiers and recovery team in our thoughts and prayers,” said US Army Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor, commanding general of 1st Armored Division. “We want everyone to know, we will not stop until our Soldiers are found.”
It comes after NATO was forced to row back its earlier comments on Wednesday that the four from the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, based out of Fort Stewart, Georgia, had all been confirmed dead.
The four were last seen on Tuesday when they set off on a training exercise as part of NATO war drills taking place on the Lithuanian border.
Their submerged M88 armored vehicle was discovered on Wednesday morning after an hours-long search mission by the US Army, Lithuanian Armed Forces, and other local authorities.
It was submerged more than five meters below the surface, Lithuania’s Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene told reporters on Thursday morning.
Search and rescue crews have been forced to bring in specialized equipment to drain water and stabilize the ground amid the swampy and muddy terrain, the US Army Public Affairs Office said in a statement on Thursday.
Hundreds of Lithuanian and American soldiers and dozens of vehicles have been scrambled to the remote site as they survey nearby woodland in the hope of finding the soldiers, reports Reuters.
“To us, their soldiers are like our soldiers,” Lithuania’s army chief Raimundas Vaiksnoras said.
Dozens of troops and scuba divers from neighboring Poland have been sent to help with the search, Poland’s Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz posted on X on Thursday.
“We are incredibly appreciative of the dedicated and professional efforts of our Lithuanian allies in ensuring the safety of US personnel,” Maj. Gen. Taylor added. “They have worked tirelessly alongside us over the last 48 hours and we continue to be grateful for their support.”
Roughly 1,000 US soldiers are stationed in Lithuania, many of them part of a rotation of troops at the Pabrade training ground.
The exercises have taken on a particular significance in the past three years since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, amid fears among the Baltic states that strongman Vladimir Putin could turn his attention on them next.
Lithuania is open to hosting more US troops in future, the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister Kestutis Budrys told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a meeting in Washington this week.
The country recently announced a major stepping up in defense spending, becoming one of the first NATO nations to match President Trump’s call for 5% of GDP going toward security.
President Trump has finally forced Europe to arm itself and “get serious” about defense, a Lithuanian defense official told The Post earlier this month.
