By Andrius Sytas
VILNIUS (Reuters) -Rescuers in Lithuania were digging on Thursday into a peat bog in a military training area to recover the vehicle of four U.S. soldiers missing for two days.
The soldiers in the M88 Hercules armoured recovery vehicle were on an exercise at the Pabrade training ground near the Belarus border where U.S. units have been rotating since 2019.
Their vehicle was located on Wednesday at more than 5 metres down and enough water had now been drained from the swamp to begin digging for it, Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene told reporters on Thursday morning after surveying the site.
Hundreds of Lithuanian and U.S. soldiers with dozens of vehicles were working at the site and surveying nearby woodland in hope of finding the soldiers. “To us, their soldiers are like our soldiers,” said army head Raimundas Vaiksnoras said.
Poland is sending dozens of troops and scuba divers and equipment to Lithuania to help with the search, Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz posted on X on Thursday.
U.S. Ambassador Kara McDonald thanked Lithuania for the help, calling it a model ally. “As our secretary of defence said, we will not rest until our troops are found,” she added at the site, saying recovery of the vehicle was difficult.
Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Kestutis Budrys told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington this week that his country was ready to host more U.S. troops.
U.S. President Donald Trump, asked about the missing soldiers, told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he had not been briefed on the incident.
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas, additional reporting by Janis Laizans, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Susan Heavey; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alison Williams)
