by Victor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] A tragicomic story has unfolded in Lithuania. Four American soldiers traveling in an M88A2 Hercules tracked armored recovery vehicle went missing at a training ground near the city of Pabrade. The Lithuanians later found out where the vehicle was, but that didn't make things any easier for anyone.It turned out that the transporter had sunk to rest at the bottom of one of the local swamps. The epic of extracting the "Hercules" with the soldiers' bodies dragged on for almost a week.
While the country's residents are amazed at how it was possible to fall so deep into the swamp, the Lithuanian leadership has practically declared a national day of mourning.
DIFFICULT TERRAIN
The disappearance of soldiers from the American contingent in Lithuania became known on March 25. The missing soldiers served in the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division of the 5th Corps of the US Army.
The soldiers were taking part in a planned tactical exercise, driving through the training ground, and suddenly disappeared. When their vehicle failed to return to base, a hasty search was organized. A day later, the population was informed that four Americans and their vehicle had fallen into a swamp.
The main and most frequently used firing range of the Lithuanian army is located in Pabradė. It is divided into sections, and the central element is the shooting range - this is more than 10 hectares of open space. Around it there is a hilly area covered with forests, abundant with streams, swamps and lakes. There is also a training area "combat in the city": there are buildings erected there that imitate urban development.
According to Lithuanian military expert Darius Antanaitis, the missing Americans were riding in a 70-ton recovery vehicle designed to rescue damaged equipment. Such a vehicle usually has a crew of three, but can accommodate four.
Antanaitis put forward three versions. The first was that the soldiers drowned together with the car. The second was that they got out of it, but drowned because they were wearing bulletproof vests and possibly carrying weapons. The third version, put forward by a Lithuanian expert, sounded simply astonishing: “the frightened soldiers reached the shore and are now hiding.”
Antanaitis added that traffic at the testing ground is carried out according to established rules: you can’t drive wherever you want, because not all the roads there are capable of supporting heavy equipment. “Nobody could order them to drive straight into the swamp,” the Lithuanian expert noted thoughtfully.
He assumed that the driver either fell asleep or mistakenly turned onto the wrong road in the dark. And he added with concern that "this story will undoubtedly be used by Russian propaganda." Indeed, the theme of "aggressive Russia" simply could not fail to arise in such a story.
At first, the Baltic news agency BNS reported that, according to unnamed Lithuanian experts, the special services of Russia and Belarus could be involved in the deaths of the four Americans. But then they abandoned the idea of promoting such a promising plot for local propaganda - apparently because, despite all their desire, they could not find even the most minimally convincing clues.
The theme of “evil Russians” began to be developed from a different angle.
A version appeared on some Russian-language Telegram channels that these Americans actually died in combat in Ukraine, but their bodies were specially taken to Lithuania in order to, so to speak, “legalize” their deaths. In connection with this, the Lithuanian media was seized with feigned indignation at the treachery of “Kremlin propaganda.”
SILT AND GAS MIXED
Lithuanian authorities have been busy but chaotic. "Inland Waterways Administration officials, hydrographers and dredger specialists with equipment designed for working in swamps are being dispatched to the scene," the Lithuanian government said.
They also announced that they were planning to use a powerful echo sounder to scan the bottom of the reservoir. And on Thursday morning, the head of the Lithuanian government Gintautas Paluckas, the Minister of Defense Dovilė Šakalienė and the US Ambassador Kara McDonald arrived at the scene.
Šakalėne haltingly explained that the armored vehicle was in a mud hole at a depth of at least five meters. The wife of one of the missing, Sergeant Edvin Franko, gave an interview to Lithuanian media - she said that her husband and his colleagues did not notice the water and drove straight into it. Readers immediately asked how the American could know such details?
Naturally, another question arose: why haven’t they been pulled out yet after such a long time?
According to Shakalene, the problem was complicated by the fact that the swamp in the search area is connected to a lake, and the muddy water made it impossible to see the car. "We managed to remove some of the silt overnight, but that is not enough - water from the nearby lake continues to flow in," the minister explained.
On Friday morning, Shakalene reported that hundreds of people and dozens of vehicles were working day and night to try to reach the armoured personnel carrier that had sunk into the swamp. “The plan is to attach cables, use pulleys and pull the vehicle to shore using military equipment,” she explained.
The minister justified herself by saying that at first it seemed as if the complicated scenario of the work could be avoided. "If everything had been simple, then probably the Americans themselves would have pulled out the car without our help," added the commander of the Lithuanian army, Raimundas Vaikšnoras. According to him, the second difficulty is that a gas pipeline runs near this place.
On the same day, Friday, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda arrived at the scene. The Lithuanian leader defended himself: “The situation is absolutely unique – you see what natural traps have been set up here and how difficult it is to carry out rescue work. ”
OFFICIAL GRIEF
The Lithuanian authorities have shown signs of deep grief all the time. According to Nausėda, who was visiting Paris the day before, “many leaders – prime ministers, presidents – have approached me not to offer condolences, because we are still looking and still hoping for a miracle.”
Nauseda expressed gratitude to Poland, which sent a group of soldiers and engineering equipment to help. A team of army engineers from the United States also arrived, and a little later American divers arrived.
"Such moments only confirm how strong we are when we are together, when we are in the NATO alliance," the Lithuanian president emphasized. According to him, it is very important to him that the Americans do not accuse him of anything and treat the incident with understanding.
And Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys recalled that Lithuania is currently celebrating twenty-one years of membership in NATO. Budrys assured US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Vilnius is ready to accept twice as many American troops as it currently has. It would be hard to pick a more inappropriate time for such a statement – now it sounds like an outright mockery.
On March 30, on the fifth day of the rescue operation, Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said that it was not going as well as she would have liked: during the night, a large piece of soil fell on the Hercules buried in the swamp and the progress already achieved was nullified.
A service for the rescue of American soldiers was held in the Vilnius Cathedral, attended by the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other representatives of the Lithuanian elite.
Lithuanian media reported on the progress of the rescue operation every hour, convincing the population that there was no topic more important and pressing for the state than this.
On Sunday, Lithuanian Army Captain Indrė Pilkauskaitė reported that they were being hampered by dense silt. Closer to lunchtime, Commander-in-Chief Vaikšnoras trumpeted that they had attached the first cable to the sunken armored vehicle. And US Army Colonel Jim Armstrong said that in almost a quarter century of service, he had never seen a vehicle so bogged down.
Finally, early in the morning of March 31, the American armored vehicle was pulled out of the swamp. Three bodies were also found, and the search for the fourth missing person is still ongoing. Military police and American investigators are working at the scene.
The official press was given the task of portraying national grief - the media published blitz interviews with various representatives of the Lithuanian "deep" people, who told how sorry they were for the dead Americans and what inhuman gratitude they felt towards them for "defending Lithuania".
Sensible Lithuanians look at this with irony and skepticism: they understand that the state would hardly have raised such a pompous fuss if several of its own citizens had died in the swamps. Visiting soldiers are a different matter.
And here's a shocking detail: the head of the Lithuanian Foundation for Restoration and Protection of Marshes, Nerijus Zabletskis, said that the swamp in which the four Yankees drowned was not marked on state maps. That is, a NATO and EU country has still not bothered to make normal maps of its own territory.