What's trending, explained.
What's trending, explained.
Officials from five European intelligence agencies have warned that Russia is stepping up plans to assassinate the bosses of European defense companies, the Financial Times reported on October 11. The warning marks a significant escalation in Moscow's covert campaign against the continent's arms industry.
According to the reporting, the threat is not limited to the chief executives of large arms manufacturers. Executives at smaller firms — particularly those making drones or drone components for Ukraine — are also being targeted. European intelligence services say they have already identified and disrupted several suspected Russian operations, including cases involving surveillance of potential targets near their homes and workplaces.
Germany's domestic intelligence service, the BfV, has sharply increased its contact with staff and executives at German defense companies, according to an official quoted in the reporting. The agency has even recommended that some use private protection teams. BfV chief Sinan Selen told German lawmakers that Russia is deliberately planning acts of violence against individuals, and that the activities are evolving in their targets, methods, and actors — including greater use of organized crime structures.
Denmark's Security and Intelligence Service separately forecast more frequent and more damaging Russian hybrid attacks on NATO countries, possibly within months, a warning Moscow's embassy in Denmark dismissed as unsupported by evidence.
The targets' own accounts underscore the seriousness. Several defense executives told the FT they had strengthened close-protection arrangements over the past six months on the advice of government security services. Some companies have reportedly increased personal security spending, and some executives are said to be under round-the-clock protection.
Assassinations against civilian targets in Europe were once considered off-limits even for Russia's spy services. According to the European officials, that taboo has eroded. Killing or threatening defense executives is now described as an increasingly prominent part of Moscow's hybrid playbook — one designed to intimidate the industry rather than to change the battlefield directly.
The timing is deliberate. With progress on the battlefield deadlocked in Ukraine and Russia's economy under strain, the Kremlin appears to be trying to fatally weaken European support for Kyiv by raising the personal cost of doing defense business. One intelligence official summarized the goal bluntly: the campaign aims to make people think twice before doing business with Ukraine. The violence does not even need to succeed to work — the threat itself drives up security costs, disrupts hiring, and chills commercial relationships.
The warnings also build on a pattern. In July 2024, Western media reported a Russian plot against Armin Papperger, the CEO of the German defense contractor Rheinmetall; in January 2025, a NATO official confirmed the threat and reported other similar plots. On October 5 this year, Germany's intelligence chiefs told the Bundestag that Russia was intensifying hybrid operations against the defense industry and critical infrastructure, and on October 7 Denmark reported sabotage attempts against Danish companies supplying weapons to Ukraine.
European security services say they expect more attempted operations in the coming months, and defense companies are likely to keep raising their security posture — at a cost that will ultimately be passed on to governments and taxpayers. German and Danish intelligence assessments suggest the campaign is expanding, not peaking.
Law enforcement responses are already visible. U.S. prosecutors recently exposed an alleged global network accused of preparing assassinations and sabotage in the United States and Europe, charging five individuals who remain at large. In Europe, agencies say disrupted operations show they are catching at least some plots before they are carried out.
The key question is whether intimidation changes the industry's behavior. So far, the public evidence points the other way: executives are hiring guards, not pulling out of Ukraine contracts. But if attacks succeed — or even if the near-misses pile up — the pressure on Europe's defense base, and on the political will behind military support for Ukraine, will only grow.