Moscow is stepping up its efforts to assassinate European defense officials. This warning, raised by Western intelligence agencies, has prompted companies to increase security measures around their top executives.

The assassinations of European civilian targets – once considered taboo even by Russian spy agencies – are playing an increasingly prominent role in these plans.

According to the Financial Times, which spoke to officials from five different intelligence agencies, CEOs and other high-level employees have become targets of Kremlin operatives.

According to sources, even the managers of smaller companies are in the crosshairs, especially those of companies involved in the production of drones or their components .

"The threat level in Europe has increased. To property, but also to people," a senior official said. Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), has significantly increased its contact with "staff and executives" of German defense companies, even recommending the use of private protection teams, an official said. Several defense industry executives told the FT that they have strengthened their close protection measures over the past six months, specifically recommended by government security services. Others maintain that they only adopt such measures when traveling abroad. Responsibility for these types of plots, known in Russian intelligence jargon as "wet work"—a term for violent operations, particularly contract killings—falls largely on the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service. And, according to intelligence sources, the GRU is adapting its methods. Its officers are increasingly collaborating with organized crime groups, using networks of agents operating across national borders, and dividing reconnaissance, logistics, planning, and execution tasks among different cells or individuals, rather than relying on individual "expendable" agents recruited online for money. In some cases, plots already underway have been detected and foiled. In others, suspicious activity has been detected, including surveillance aimed at tracing people's daily routines, both at their homes and workplaces. Security officials have emphasized that a central element of the Russian strategy is that assassination attempts do not necessarily have to be completed for the campaign to achieve its intended effect.

"From the Russian perspective, the primary objective remains psychological," an intelligence official said. "It's enough to make people believe they could become a target to achieve the desired effect. They want individuals to think twice before doing business with Ukraine."

(Unioneonline)

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