NATO clarified the words of Secretary General Mark Rutte that four US soldiers who went missing during an exercise in Lithuania had died. The US Army said that their fate remains unknown, the Associated Press reported, BTA reported.
"The search continues", the alliance noted in a publication in Ex. "We regret any confusion that may have arisen following today's words by the NATO Secretary General. He commented on the media reports, but did not confirm the exact fate of the missing, which is still unknown."
The US Army announced that the armored vehicle "Hercules", in which the four American soldiers were during an exercise, was found fallen into a body of water. They added that joint operations involving the US and Lithuanian military and Lithuanian civil rescue services are underway to extract her.
The soldiers, who are part of the 1st Brigade of the US 3rd Infantry Division, were participating in a tactical exercise when they disappeared.
Asked by reporters last night whether he had been informed of the case, President Donald Trump replied: "No, I haven't".
During a visit to Warsaw, Rutte told journalists that he had been informed of the deaths of the four soldiers while giving a lecture, and added that his thoughts are now with their families and the United States.
"This is still early news, so we don't know the details yet. This is really terrible news. Our thoughts are with their families and friends," the secretary-general said from the Polish capital.
Lithuanian television reported that four American soldiers and their vehicle had gone missing on Tuesday afternoon at a training ground in Pabrade, a town about 10 km from the Belarusian border.
The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are members of NATO and have often had tense relations with Russia, a key ally of Belarus, since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.
The ties have deteriorated further since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has been one of Ukraine's most vocal supporters in its fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces, the Associated Press notes.