Western intelligence services have warned the heads of Europe’s defence companies that Russia is stepping up efforts to kill them.
This is reported by the Financial Times, citing officials from five European intelligence services.
“With progress on the battlefield in Ukraine at a stalemate and Russia’s economy under strain, the Kremlin has ordered an expansion of sabotage and ‘hybrid’ operations in Europe, seeking to fatally weaken support for Kyiv in the coming months,” the newspaper notes. “The killing of European civilian targets, once considered taboo even by Russian intelligence services, is becoming an increasingly prominent part of these plans.”
Executives of smaller companies, especially those involved in producing drones or their components, are also in their sights, FT sources say.
“The threat level in Europe has risen — both for property and for people,” one senior European intelligence official said.
Germany’s domestic intelligence service (BfV) has significantly expanded its work with “staff and management” at German defence companies, including recommending the use of private close-protection teams, a BfV official said.
“Russia is deliberately planning acts of violence against individuals, involving state or state-controlled actors,” BfV head Sinan Selen warned German lawmakers on Monday. “We are seeing these activities develop further in terms of targets, methods and the actors involved, including the use of organised crime structures.”
Several defence industry executives, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Financial Times that over the past six months they have strengthened their personal security measures on specific advice from government security services. Others said they used such measures only when travelling outside their own country.
According to FT sources, Russia’s military intelligence service (the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, formerly the GRU), which is responsible for assassination operations, is adapting its methods. Main Directorate officers are working more closely with organised criminal groups, using cross-border agent networks and dividing intelligence, logistics, planning and execution among different cells or individuals, rather than relying on individual “disposable” agents recruited online for money.
Security officials stressed that a key part of Russia’s approach is that assassination attempts do not even necessarily have to be carried out for the campaign to have the desired effect.
“The main objective from Russia’s point of view is still psychological,” one intelligence officer said. “By merely making people feel they could be targeted, they are already achieving their effect. They want people to think twice before doing business with Ukraine.”
Security experts said they are receiving a growing number of enquiries from defence companies, as well as those working in sectors such as critical infrastructure and energy, about how to protect their European employees.
By way of reminder, in July 2024 it emerged that Russia had planned to kill Rheinmetall chief executive Armin Papperger, but US and German intelligence services thwarted the plot.
At the end of 2025, German intelligence services prevented an attempt on Stefan Tumann, the founder of Donaustahl, a company that supplies drones to Ukraine’s Defence Forces.