Four United States army soldiers have been killed in Lithuania during training, the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, said while visiting Warsaw on Wednesday.
“Whilst I was speaking the news came out about four American soldiers who were killed in an incident in Lithuania,” Rutte told reporters, adding that he did not know any details.
Lithuania’s military earlier on Wednesday said they were searching for four US soldiers and a tracked vehicle which had gone missing on Tuesday afternoon.
A statement from the US army’s Europe and Africa public affairs office in Wiesbaden, Germany, said the soldiers were conducting scheduled tactical training at the time.
“A possible scene has now been identified, and a search and rescue operation is underway,” the Lithuanian military said in a statement.
It said further information would be provided as new information becomes available.
The Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT reported that four US soldiers and a vehicle were reported missing on Tuesday afternoon during an exercise at the General Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in Pabradė, a town located less than 10km (6 miles) from the border with Belarus.
The Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are all Nato members and have often had chilly ties with Russia, a key ally of Belarus, since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.
Relations soured further over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, has been one of the most outspoken supporters of Ukraine in its fight against the Russian president, Vladimir Putin’s, forces.
More details soon …
