The president of Lithuania on Friday visited swampland near his country’s border with Belarus, saying he was “hoping for a miracle” as military and civilian rescue crews worked frantically to extract a heavy U.S. Army vehicle carrying four U.S. soldiers that disappeared in the waterlogged forest area Tuesday.

The American vehicle, an M88 Hercules, went missing during a military training exercise and was found Wednesday submerged in a muddy bog. The soldiers have not been found, and efforts to reach the vehicle have been hampered by deep mud and water from a nearby lake.

A Lithuanian official involved in the rescue mission who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter said tracks in the ground indicated that the American vehicle had veered off a sandy path toward a small pond and then turned abruptly into a wooded area that ended up being a swamp. It seemed to have sunk quickly, the person said, but it was unclear what happened to the crew.

“Although many skeptics would probably say that there is nothing to hope for in these circumstances, I want to hope,” President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania said during a visit to the site Friday. “I am still hoping for a miracle,” he added.

The missing soldiers, from the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, were training near Pabrade, a city in eastern Lithuania near the border with Belarus, a close ally of Russia and a stalwart supporter of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Belarus and Russia have frequently criticized Lithuania, a member of NATO that used to be part of the Soviet Union, for hosting U.S. and other allied troops.

Amid rising alarm in Lithuania and other formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe that President Donald Trump will weaken the NATO alliance, frantic joint efforts to recover the missing U.S. soldiers by Lithuanian and American rescue crews have showcased what Nauseda on Friday said was the value of allies acting together.

Poland, Lithuania’s neighbor and another member of NATO, has also sent military engineers to help.

“Such minutes, such circumstances,” the Lithuanian president said, “only confirm how strong we are when we are together, when we are in the NATO alliance and feel the support of our friends.”