Four US soldiers found dead after they went missing in military exercises in Lithuania

Four US service members who went missing in Lithuania after a military exercise were found dead, Delfi publication reports.

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by Tech. Sgt. Andy Dunaway, U.S. Air Force, https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/pdm/

Two U.S. Army soldiers from the 101st Airborne Regiment survey the area ahead

Military personnel from multiple countries, Air Force helicopters, and officers from the State Border Guard Service were involved in search efforts, Delfi said.

"Four foreign soldiers who went missing during exercises at the training ground on Tuesday evening died," the report states.

Delfi Lithuania also reported that the four US soldiers went missing in the Lithuanian town of Pabradė. A tracked military vehicle disappeared as well.

"The suspected location of the incident was identified, and search-and-rescue operations were underway," Gintautas Ciunis, a representative of the Lithuanian Armed Forces then said.

Initially, reports mentioned three missing soldiers without specifying their nationality. It was later confirmed that four US troops had disappeared during a scheduled tactical exercise on the evening of March 25. The missing soldiers were found near the border with Belarus.

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Lithuania officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and the Russian semi-exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest, with a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Lithuania covers an area of 65,300 km² (25,200 sq mi), with a population of 2.89 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius; other major cities include Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys. Lithuanians who are the titular nation and form the majority of the country's population, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of Balts and speak Lithuanian.