For months, a police patrol car and several officers with submachine guns have been parked outside Rheinmetall’s headquarters in Düsseldorf, according to observers cited by the Guardian. At public events, the company’s chief executive, Armin Papperger, walks with bodyguards supplied by North Rhine-Westphalia’s police. Hardly any executives in Germany get that treatment. On July 11, 2024, American media explained why.
CNN reported, citing five sources including a senior German government official, that Russia had plotted to murder Papperger and that U.S. and German authorities had stopped it earlier in the year. The reason, the sources said, was the arms deliveries his company makes to Ukraine. NBC News heard the same from a U.S. official and a second source, and the New York Times and the Financial Times followed.
One target among several
The plan against Papperger was not an isolated one. CNN’s sources described a wider Russian effort to kill the heads of defence companies across Europe that back Kyiv. His, they said, had advanced furthest. U.S. intelligence found it first and passed the warning to Berlin, which tightened security around him and around Rheinmetall. A German official confirmed to the Guardian that Washington had alerted the government.
Rheinmetall is Europe’s largest producer of ammunition and supplies Kyiv with 155 mm shells. It had recently opened a repair plant for armoured vehicles in the west of the country and planned more plants there, including one for Lynx infantry fighting vehicles. Der Spiegel quoted German security officials as saying the planned Ukrainian factory lay behind the plot above all.
The company said little. It does not normally discuss security, a spokesman, Oliver Hoffman, told NBC, adding that “the necessary measures are always taken.” Papperger was more candid with the Financial Times. He would not confirm the threat outright, but said of the CNN story: “I think CNN is not just looking up at the sky.” He also spoke of a “great level of security around my person.”
Berlin’s reaction
The report broke while NATO leaders were meeting in Washington. Chancellor Olaf Scholz declined to discuss it at a press conference there, though he said the government knew how many Russian threats it faced. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock did not mention a plot directly. Russia, she said, was waging a “hybrid war of aggression,” and Europeans must not be naive.
Politicians back home were blunter. Marcus Faber, who chairs the Bundestag defence committee, told Bild that Russia was “bringing its war and terror to Europe.” Michael Roth, head of the foreign affairs committee, said Vladimir Putin was fighting not only Ukraine but its supporters. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser spoke of a “significantly heightened threat,” and her ministry said Germany would not be intimidated.
The Kremlin treated the story as fiction. Its spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, called it “another fake story” and said anonymous sourcing meant such reports could not be taken seriously.
Papperger, who is 61, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the following day that he expected the war to go on and Rheinmetall’s turnover to rise by up to 40% in 2024.
Sources
- U.S., Germany foil alleged Russian plot to assassinate CEO of German arms firm Rheinmetall (NBC News)
- Germany decries Russian plot to assassinate Rheinmetall boss (DW)
- US reportedly foiled Russian plot to kill boss of German arms firm (The Guardian)
- German shock at reported Russian assassination plot (BBC)
