A U.S. M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle that was carrying four American soldiers was retrieved in Pabradė, Lithuania, early Monday after sinking in a swamp last week. The fate of the four soldiers who were aboard the craft remains unknown.
“The armored vehicle was pulled ashore at 4:40 a.m., the towing operation is complete, Lithuanian Military Police and U.S. investigators continue their work,” Lithuania Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė announced on Facebook, according to the Associated Press.
“Until the investigators have more details, we need to stay calm and focused, and keep in mind the sensitivity of the situation and the concerns of the soldiers’ families,” she reportedly added.
Despite ongoing efforts, the soldiers have yet to be located.
The soldiers, based in Fort Stewart in Georgia, were riding in the vehicle on a scheduled maintenance mission to recover another U.S. Army vehicle in the training area when they disappeared early Tuesday. The next day, the M88 Hercules was discovered in a peat bog and was “assessed to be around four meters below the water’s surface and encased in about two meters of mud,” U.S. Army Europe and Africa said.
LITHUANIAN, POLISH TROOPS AID IN ‘SEARCH AND RECOVERY’ FOR 4 MISSING US SOLDIERS FROM FORT STEWART
The Army did not immediately respond Monday morning to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
U.S. Navy divers successfully attached two lines to hoist points on the sinking M88 Hercules vehicle on Sunday. “The process is projected to take a significant amount of time and effort, as the terrain surrounding the peat bog remains challenging – but the rescue workers will not be deterred,” the U.S. Army Europe and Africa had written in a post on X.
Earlier in the day, divers had shackled the first line to a hoist point on the Hercules, though winching efforts were expected to take longer than expected with both lines attached because of the amount of pressure and suction from the mud, the Army noted.
To assist with digging and pumping operations, a Rapidly Available Interface for Trans-loading (RAIL) system was expected to arrive on the scene later in the day.
The RAIL system is traditionally used to help offload and onload railroad networks in challenging terrain, though engineers believed it could help stabilize the ground around the recovery site.
“It is highly complex trying to get to the vehicle itself with the terrain out here and where the M88 is sitting in a bog swamp-like area, below the waterline. So not only are we dealing with the terrain, a lot of mud that is over top of the vehicle, but also the fact that it’s 70 tons that we’re trying to recover out of a swamp or bog,” Brig. Gen. John Lloyd, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers North Atlantic Division said.
In an interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday afternoon, Šakalienė said from the moment Lithuania learned of the incident, it had “given everything” it has, both from its armed forces and internal affairs ministry institutions, to find the soldiers.
“From helicopters with thermal vision to forces on the ground, we are continuing very intensely,” Šakalienė said.
Šakalienė said it is unknown if the soldiers could have escaped the vehicle before it sank but reiterated there was “no evidence” confirming the deaths of the missing soldiers as of Thursday afternoon.
The area surrounding the site is a forested area with swamps and bogs, similar to an environment found in Alaska. Weather conditions are also similar, making it a challenging training area for Army personnel.
“Maybe they were lost, confused, hurt or in hypothermic condition, and we haven’t found them yet,” Šakalienė said. “But we are not losing hope until the very last moment. These are strong soldiers, strong, grown men. All scenarios are possible.”
SEARCH ‘ONGOING’ FOR 4 AMERICAN SOLDIERS MISSING FROM TRAINING AREA IN LITHUANIA: NATO
She added that Lithuania, a member of NATO, considers American soldiers their own and will not leave them behind.
The U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division is keeping the soldiers’ families updated on the search.
“This tragic situation weighs heavily on all of us, and we’re keeping the families, friends and teammates of our soldiers and recovery team in our thoughts and prayers,” U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor, the commanding general of 1st Armored Division, wrote in a statement last week. “We want everyone to know we will not stop until our soldiers are found.”
President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday he had not been briefed about the missing soldiers.
The training site is less than 6 miles from Belarus, a Russian ally since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.
Lithuania, a Catholic country, organized a joint prayer Sunday at its main church, the capital cathedral, and hosted a mass for the missing soldiers.
Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman, Alexandra Koch and Landon Mion contributed to this report.
