Five European Intelligence Services Warn: Russia Is Planning Assassinations of Executives at Firms Helping Ukraine

Russia is stepping up covert operations across Europe, and its services are thinking ever more seriously about assassinating executives of defence companies and other civilians linked to military aid for Ukraine. The warning comes from the intelligence services of five European countries, Western media have reported.

According to their assessments, Moscow's goal is to weaken military aid to Kyiv at a moment when Russia's advance on the front has slowed and its economy is under growing pressure. At the centre of the warnings is the military intelligence service, the GRU, which is behind a string of covert operations on European soil. The list of potential targets includes senior officials and executives of defence firms - including smaller drone makers and companies that directly supply Ukraine with military equipment.

German security services have already stepped up contacts with the defence industry and have advised some executives to take extra personal protection, including private security. The fear isn't theoretical. Back in 2024, US and German services uncovered a Russian plan to kill Armin Papperger, CEO of German arms maker Rheinmetall, one of Europe's key weapons suppliers to Ukraine. What's new is that the threat no longer stops at the big names: small firms whose output directly affects Ukraine's defence are becoming targets too.

Spies from Telegram

Besides the assassination threats, European services are recording more and more sabotage, cyberattacks and attempts to disrupt the routes by which military equipment reaches Ukraine. Denmark's intelligence service PET has warned that Russia is increasingly trying to strike specific defence companies. The method is almost banal: people are recruited through social networks and apps like Telegram for simple tasks - photograph a factory, a warehouse or a vehicle. They usually have no intelligence experience at all; they're in it for the money. The photos are then used to prepare sabotage.

How much money is enough for someone to photograph a factory without asking why?

European intelligence officials believe Moscow wants to achieve several things at once: disrupt weapons production and deliveries, intimidate executives and employees, drive up the cost of protecting them, sow insecurity among Europe's population, divide NATO members and weaken political support for Ukraine. The services don't currently consider a large-scale conventional Russian invasion of NATO territory to be imminent. But hybrid operations, they warn, are becoming more intense and more dangerous.

Moscow routinely denies being behind sabotage and assassination attempts in Europe. But when five European services raise the alarm and German services advise executives to hire private security, the question is no longer whether this war has crossed Ukraine's border - it's how deep into Europe it has already come.