Warsaw, Poland (AP) – NATO said on Wednesday that Secretary General Mark Latte proposed that four US troops who went missing were killed when four US soldiers who went missing during training in Lithuania said their fate had not been confirmed yet.
“The search is ongoing,” NATO said in a statement posted to X.
The U.S. Army said the Hercules armored vehicle, which had four US troops during training, was found to be immersed in the waters. It said recovery efforts are underway by the US Army, Lithuanian military and civilian agencies.
Soldiers from the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division were tactical training when they went missing.
Asked Wednesday evening if reporters had explained the missing soldier, President Donald Trump said, “No, I don't have it.”
During his trip to Warsaw, Latte told reporters that he received the deaths of four soldiers while giving lectures, and that his thoughts were with their families and the United States.
“This is still early news, so we don't know the details. This is really terrible news and our thoughts are with our family and our loved ones,” Latte said in Warsaw.
Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT reported that four U.S. soldiers and their vehicles went missing Tuesday afternoon during practice at General Zukauskas' training ground in the publade, located less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with Belarus.
The Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are all members of NATO and have often had chilly ties with Belarus' important ally Russia since it declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.
There was even more sour sourness about Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda being one of Ukraine's most outspoken supporters in the fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin's army.
