Lithuanian border guards have said that the reported arrest of a U.S. citizen in neighboring Belarus is unconnected to the ongoing search for a missing American soldier.
Belarusian media reported on Monday that a 27-year-old American man had been detained by customs officers at a railway station for allegedly crossing illegally into the country from the Lithuanian border town of Kena.
Around 45 km further north at the Pabradė military training area, a multinational operation to find the missing member of the U.S. army continues, one day after the announcement that three of his colleagues had been found dead in an armored vehicle that had sunk into a swamp.
But Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service (VSAT) said on Tuesday that the man arrested in Belarus “is in no way connected with the events at the Pabradė training area,” public broadcaster LRT reported.
While Belarusian authorities have not provided much detail about the man’s arrest or his identity, VSAT said that he had been staying in Lithuania legally for a couple of weeks.
Guards had spoken to him at the border with Russia on March 26, and then at Kena train station on March 27 and 30, LRT wrote.
Poles and Estonians join search
Meanwhile, Polish engineers and Estonian police dogs have joined efforts to find the missing soldier in recent hours, with a third amphibious excavator also being deployed, the Lithuanian Armed Forces said.
In an update posted on Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Army said that “two specialized unmanned aerial systems have also been added to the search” as it enters its second week.
Four soldiers disappeared last Tuesday when their M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle sank into boggy terrain on the Pabradė training ground while conducting a mission to repair and tow an immobilized tactical vehicle. Three bodies were found when the Hercules was recovered on Monday.
Efforts to raise the 70-ton vehicle, which was submerged in mud, were complicated by persistent flooding on the site and the need to shore up the terrain for the use of heavy machinery. LRT reported on Tuesday that the vehicle was now ready to be taken away.
The American government’s foreign policy chief, Marco Rubio, said in a post on X that he was “heartbroken to learn about the deaths of our U.S. soldiers in Lithuania.”
“The United States is enormously grateful for the help of our Lithuanian allies who searched tirelessly and spared no resource to help us find our soldiers,” he added.
