The U.S. soldiers had been at the center of a recovery mission in Lithuania for nearly a week after their armored vehicle sank near the country's border with Belarus.

The soldiers were in a vehicle that became trapped in a bog during a training mission last week. A fourth soldier was still missing.

Germany is putting thousands of troops in Lithuania, a NATO member that borders Russia. It's the first long-term deployment abroad since World War II.

Tensions in Europe and fears of a third World War are growing as Germany starts sending troops to Lithuania to 'protect' a NATO flank, according to senior military officials

The soldier and three others had gone on a training mission in a 70-ton vehicle that sank in a bog near the border with Belarus.

On March 31, an armored vehicle that trapped American soldiers was pulled from the swamp. “If we hadn’t found it that night, we would never have found it,” admitted General Curtis Taylor, commander of the U.

A U.S. Army armored vehicle swallowed by a Lithuanian bog with four American soldiers on board was pulled free Monday after a major five-day international recovery operation, authorities in Vilnius said.