The search for missing American soldiers in Lithuania continues while crews work to extract vehicles

Friday, the president of Lithuania visited the swamps on the border of his country with Belarus, claiming that he “hoped for a miracle” while the rescue teams worked frantically to extract a heavy vehicle from the American army carrying four American soldiers who disappeared in the aquatic forest.

The American vehicle, an M88 Hercules, disappeared during a military training exercise and was found on Wednesday overwhelmed in a muddy peat bog. The soldiers were not found and the efforts to reach the vehicle were hampered by the deep mud and the water of a neighboring lake.

A Lithuanian official involved in the rescue mission who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case said that tracks in the ground said that the American vehicle had turned a sand rail towards a small pond, then turned suddenly into a wooded area which ended up being a marsh. He seemed to have sank quickly, said the person, but he was not clear what had happened to the crew.

“Although many skeptics would probably say that there is nothing to hope for in these circumstances, I want to hope,” President Gitanas Naseda of Lithuania said on Friday during a visit to the site. “I still hope a miracle,” he added.

The missing soldiers, of the first brigade, third infantry division, trained near Pabrade, a city in eastern Lithuania near the border with the Bélarus, a close ally of Russia and a faithful supporter of the Moscow War in Ukraine.