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BERLIN — The U.S. and Germany foiled a Russian plot to kill the chief executive of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger.
The plan to kill the CEO was part of a series of Russian plots to assassinate defense industry executives across Europe, CNN reported Thursday, citing U.S. and Western intelligence officials.
“In view of the latest reports on Rheinmetall, this is what we have actually been communicating more and more clearly in recent months. Russia is waging a hybrid war of aggression,” Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said Thursday evening on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington.
“We have seen that there have been attacks on people on European territory. We have seen that there have been attacks on factories. And this underlines once again that we as Europeans must protect ourselves as best we can and not be naive,” she continued.
U.S. intelligence services discovered the plot to kill Papperger earlier this year, subsequently informing Germany, whose security services were then able to foil the plot, a senior German government official told CNN.
A Rheinmetall spokesperson confirmed to POLITICO that the company had been informed by the authorities about the foiled threat. He stressed that there had been no concrete attempt to murder Papperger but rather a “plot.”
Rheinmetall is Germany’s largest and most successful manufacturer of 155mm artillery shells, a critical asset for the Ukrainians in their war against Russia. The company is also opening an armored vehicle plant inside Ukraine in the coming weeks, a development which is concerning for Russia, according to CNN.
The German Interior Ministry declined to comment specifically on CNN’s report in an email to POLITICO, but a spokesperson said: “Our security authorities are very vigilant and act accordingly, in close cooperation with our international partners.”
“The Federal Government will not be intimidated by the Russian threats. We will continue to do everything in our power to prevent possible threats in Germany,” the spokesperson added. “The Russian regime uses threats such as cyberattacks, disinformation, espionage and sabotage.”
The plot against Papperger was the Russian government’s most sophisticated plan, CNN’s report states. CNN contacted the German and Russian embassies in Washington, but they declined to comment on the case.
A hybrid war of aggression
It would not be the first time Russia has been accused of plotting an assassination to potentially take place on German soil.
In 2021, Vadim N. Krasikov, whom German authorities identified as an employee of the F.S.B., Russia’s domestic spy service, was convicted of murdering a Chechen former separatist in broad daylight in a Berlin park two years earlier. After the conviction, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats, and tensions between the countries escalated markedly.
In June, Western security officials blamed Russia for a fire at a metal factory belonging to defense manufacturer Diehl in Berlin.
Sara Nanni, a German Greens MP and member of the defense committee, said in a post on X that “this is all part of Russia’s war against Ukraine.”
“But we must be clear: we are also being targeted. The point of such actions is to deter the industry from actively participating in the defense — of Ukraine and ours,” Nanni said.
Henry Donovan, Nette Nöstlinger and James Angelos contributed reporting. This story has been updated.
