Russia steps up bid to kill European defence chiefs, spy agencies warn

Western intelligence agencies have warned Europe’s defence bosses that Russia is stepping up efforts to assassinate them, prompting companies to increase personal security around their top executives.

With progress on the battlefield deadlocked in Ukraine and Russia’s economy struggling, the Kremlin has ordered an expansion of sabotage and “hybrid” operations in Europe as it seeks to fatally weaken support for Kyiv in the coming months.

Assassinations against European civilian targets — once considered taboo, even by Russia’s spy agencies — are an increasingly prominent part of those plans, European intelligence services have told the FT.

The FT spoke with officials from five different European intelligence agencies who warned that chief executives and other senior employees at defence companies were being targeted by Kremlin operatives.

Executives at smaller companies — especially those involved in the manufacturing of drones or their components — are also in their sights, the people said.

“The threat level has risen in Europe. To property but also to people,” said one senior European intelligence official.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service (BfV) has significantly increased its outreach to “employees and management” at German defence companies, including recommending the use of privately contracted close-protection teams, a BfV official said.

“Russia is engaged in the deliberate planning of acts of violence against individuals by state or state-controlled actors,” BfV head Sinan Selen warned German lawmakers on Monday.

“We are observing a further development of these actions in terms of the targets, the methods and the actors involved, including the use of organised crime structures.”

Several defence executives, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the FT they had escalated their close-protection arrangements in the past six months on the specific advice of government security services. Others said they only used such measures when travelling outside of their home country.

The responsibility for such plots, known in Russian intelligence jargon as “wet work”, largely falls to the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.

It has been adapting its methods, intelligence sources said. GRU officers are working more closely with organised crime groups, utilising cross-border agent networks, and dividing reconnaissance, logistics, planning and execution between different cells or individuals, rather than relying on single “disposable” agents recruited online for cash.

In some cases, active plots have already been discovered and stopped. In others, suspicious activity has been observed — including “pattern-of-life” surveillance against individuals at home as well as work.

Security officials stressed that a key part of the Russian approach was that assassination attempts did not even have to be carried out in order for the campaign have its desired effect.

“The main goal from the Russian perspective is still psychological,” said one intelligence official.

“Just by making people feel they might be a target, they are having their effect. They want individuals to think twice before doing business with Ukraine.”

In many instances, one official stressed, efforts by Russian agents were still amateurish and easily countered.

That causes its own problems, however, with security services forced to consider anyone a potential threat. In August, two young Russian holidaymakers were arrested in Sweden because they had pitched a tent close to the property of Saab’s chief executive Micael Johansson. They were released shortly afterwards.

Security experts said they were fielding more enquiries from defence companies, as well as those operating in sectors such as critical infrastructure and energy, about how to protect their European employees.

Claudine Fry, a London-based partner at Control Risks, a global strategic intelligence and security firm, said assassination risks were “definitely an issue that is much higher on the radar now”.

“We are seeing increased interest in trying to understand how seriously to take the threat to executives and [how to take] active steps towards managing that threat.”

Industry executives warned the cost of the extensive protection required, both for people and for sites, could prove a burden for companies, especially for start-ups. One executive said they recently moved one of their production sites in western Europe to protect it from Russian threats.

Defence executives at Europe’s largest arms companies have been on high alert since early 2024, when US and German intelligence uncovered a Russian plot against Armin Papperger, the chief executive of Germany’s Rheinmetall.

Intelligence sources believed Russian agents had been looking at a single high-profile hit, and Papperger, who had been an outspoken advocate of arming Ukraine against Russia, was a unique target. Papperger has said he now has round-the-clock close protection from a combination of private security guards and police.

Additional reporting by Helen Warrell in London