Lithuania recovers a vehicle that transported 4 missing American soldiers

The Defense Ministry of Lithuania announced on Monday that it had withdrawn an American military vehicle from a deep and muddy peat bog, almost a week after the four American soldiers who led it.

The vehicle was withdrawn from the peat bog on Sunday evening, said the Ministry of Defense on social networks. He did not provide an update on the missing soldiers.

The soldiers were missing Tuesday after their return from a training mission, according to the US military. Their vehicle, an M88 Hercules, was discovered Wednesday in a muddy peat bog.

The missing soldiers, of the first brigade, third infantry division, trained near the border with the Bélarus, a close ally of Russia and a faithful supporter of his war in Ukraine.

The soldiers were sent to the M88 Hercules, essentially a giant armored tow truck to extract another army vehicle, said the army. They may have left the road and in the peat bog, and the soldiers seemed to have been trapped inside, according to an American army official in Europe.

To lift the vehicle, the US navy divers swam in the peat bog to attach two cables to the flowing vehicle, said the US military on social networks. The divers had trouble reaching the vehicle due to the dense mud and the rescue teams searched and pumped from the water out of the peat bog, said the army.

Successing efforts were also hampered by a landslide on Sunday, the Lithuanian Defense Minister Sakaline said on social networks. She described the effort as a “”Exhausting fight with the power of the deep swamp. »»

The initial research of soldiers, through thick forests and marshy land, involved Lithuanian military helicopters and diving teams, and hundreds of American and Lithuanian soldiers and officers responsible for the application of laws, said the American army.

Bélarus and Russia frequently criticized Lithuania, a member of NATO who was part of the Soviet Union, for the reception of American troops and other allies.

Lithuania and other former Soviet states in Eastern Europe fear that President Trump weaken NATO. Their participation in recovery efforts to find the missing American soldiers showed what President Gitanas Nareda of Lithuania said that the value of the allies acted together. Poland, the neighbor of Lithuania and another member of NATO, also sent military engineers to help.