VILNIUS, Lithuania – Four U.S. soldiers are missing and feared dead after their tracked recovery vehicle vanished during a NATO training exercise near Lithuania’s border with Belarus.
Local media outlets, including TV3.lt and lrytas.lt, reported that the soldiers were found dead in a swamp along with their vehicle. However, Lithuanian and U.S. military officials have yet to confirm their deaths or the exact circumstances of their disappearance.
The Lithuanian Armed Forces reported the soldiers missing on Wednesday afternoon. Helicopters from the Air Force and the State Border Guard Service were deployed to assist in the search effort.
“A possible location of the incident has been identified, and a search and rescue operation is underway,” said Lithuanian military spokesperson Major Gintautas Ciunis.
The U.S. Embassy in Lithuania confirmed the disappearance in a statement on social media, stating that the soldiers—members of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division—were engaged in scheduled tactical training at the time of the incident.
It remains unclear when exactly they went missing.
Giedrimas Jeglinskas, chairman of Lithuania’s National Security and Defense Committee, acknowledged the risks of military exercises but emphasized the value of U.S. troops stationed in the region.
“We truly appreciate and are grateful for the U.S. presence here,” Jeglinskas said. “Such events do occur during large-scale joint military exercises, not only among the Americans but also in other armies. The aim is to reduce the likelihood of such incidents, but they are not impossible.”
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda and Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas confirmed they were receiving updates on the search operation.
The missing soldiers were believed to be inside an M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle, a heavily armored machine based on the Abrams tank. Weighing up to 63 tons, the vehicle is used for battlefield recovery operations and has also been deployed in Ukraine.
Lithuania, a key NATO member, hosts more than 1,000 American troops on a rotational basis due to its strategic location bordering Russia and Belarus, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tensions in the region have remained high, particularly following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
