After days of uncertainty
Lithuania: U.S. tank from mud recovered-all soldiers dead dead
Updated on April 1st, 2025 – 7:42 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
Four US soldiers are dead, their M88 tank was sunk deep in the mud. Now emergency services could recover the vehicle and the corpses.
For days, four missing US soldiers were sought in Lithuania. With a tank on a military training area in Pabrade, they got into a sludge layer up to five meters deep. The recovery of the almost 70 ton tank was extremely complicated. The spilled military vehicle was finally recovered on Monday morning.
Four US soldiers are said to have been in the vehicle for several days. Three of them were rescued dead on Monday, a fourth on Tuesday.
Lithuania’s Minister of Defense Dovile Sakaliene spoke of a “painful loss” and a “very sad day for all of Lithuania”. “We can assure you that we will not rest until we have found the last missing soldier,” she also wrote on the platform X. President Gitanas Nauseda and Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys expressed their sympathy and expressed their condolences to the soldiers. US representatives are currently investigating on site together with the Lithuanian military police to clarify the incident.
As Major Gintau’s Ciunis, spokesman for the Lithuanian forces, announced, the actual rescue operation lasted a little more than two hours at night. The mountains were released from the mud at 4.30 a.m. local time. Previously, two ropes were attached to the tank by divers on Sunday evening to pull it out of the mud. For this purpose, two mountains and two bulldozers were used for anchoring.
In order to get the tank, which was almost five meters deep and below the waterline, the helpers had to dry the swampy area at the point. They pumped water and mud for days after the swamp -like floor on the rescue location had been stabilized with poured gravel and sand. However, there were repeated setbacks – so the salvage campaign was thrown back on Sunday by a landslide.
In view of the dangerous situation, the defense minister praised the cooperation between the allies on site. In addition to Lithuanian and US emergency services, representatives of the Polish army and other nationalities were also on site to support the rescue.
The sympathy in Lithuania is also high: In Vilnius’ cathedral, there was a joint prayer for the missing soldiers on Sunday. Soldiers from the Bundeswehr also took part in the public service who are stationed in the Catholic Baltic State.
The four US soldiers had been missing since Tuesday. According to US information, they were no longer found after the end of a tactical exercise. The Lithuanian military and the police then started a joint search with the US military. This finally led to the location of her M88 Hercules mountain armor in a body of water on the practice area. Pabrade is located on the NATO-East flank not far from the border with Belarus.
