Four US soldiers killed in Lithuania, NATO secretary general says
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Military authorities said soldiers were conducting regular tactical training outside of Vilnius.
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Members of the US Army 1st Division 9th Regiment 1st battalion unload heavy combat equipment, including Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, at the railway station near the Pabrade military base in Lithuania on October 21, 2019. (AFP)
Four US army servicemen were killed in Lithuania during training, according to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who visited Warsaw on Wednesday.
Rutte told reporters he knew no specifics, but the news of the four deaths "in an incident" came while he spoke.
Lithuania's military said early on Wednesday that they were looking for four US servicemen and a tracked vehicle that went missing on Tuesday afternoon.
According to a statement issued by the US Army's Europe and Africa Public Affairs Office in Wiesbaden, Germany, the soldiers were performing regular tactical training at the time.
“A possible scene has now been identified, and a search and rescue operation is underway,” the Lithuanian military had stated., noting that further information would be given.
According to LRT, four US troops and a vehicle went missing during an exercise at the General Silvestras Žukauskas training site in Pabradė, a town near the Belarusian border.
Lithuania, along with Latvia, and Estonia are all NATO members, and their relations with Russia, Belarus' primary ally, have been strained since the latter declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has been a vocal backer of Ukraine in the war against Russia, as relations have deteriorated since the war broke out.
