Four Dutch soldiers serving with a multi-nation force in Lithuania have been sent back to the Netherlands after they were arrested for getting into a fight, Trouw said on Tuesday.

The paper says it is unclear what happened but according to Lithuanian police reports, two of the soldiers attacked a Lithuanian man. Lithuanian media report that the men had been drinking and that the cause of the dispute may have been an unpaid bill.

A spokesman for the defence ministry told Trouw that the Netherlands had asked Lithuania not to try the men but to hand them over to the Dutch authorities for punishment.

‘Until the investigation has been completed, there is no question of disciplinary measures,’ spokesman Joost de Vries is quoted as saying.

Some 270 Dutch soldiers are in Lithuania as part of a Nato mission designed to improve the defense of eastern Europe in the face of potential Russian aggression.