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Russian Intelligence Suspected of Plotting Assassination of German Drone Executive Supplying Ukraine
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Russian intelligence services were likely preparing an assassination attempt against Stefan Thumann, the manager of German defense startup Donaustahl, which supplies reconnaissance and loitering drones to Ukraine, according to an investigation published by German newspaper Die Zeit on August 5.
According to the report, Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the case as a suspected planned assassination.
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German intelligence services launched an operation in December 2025 after a man identified as Sergey N. appeared in the Lower Bavarian town of Strasskirchen, where Thumann lived. According to the investigation, he approached Thumann's residence, filmed the building's entrance on his phone, and photographed the residents' nameplate.
German authorities began monitoring the case after receiving intelligence from a foreign partner warning that Thumann faced an elevated security threat.
Bavarian police detained Sergey N. and seized his mobile phones. However, investigators were unable to extract the devices' data during the detention period, and he was released.
Authorities later concluded that he had been in contact with a Russian intelligence service and had also attempted to monitor Thumann's father in an effort to determine the entrepreneur's whereabouts.
By then, Sergey N. and his family had relocated to Spain. According to Die Zeit, surveillance of Thumann was subsequently continued by Alla S., a Romanian national living in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia region.
Both suspects were arrested in March 2026—Sergey N. in Spain and Alla S. in Germany.
Investigators do not believe either suspect was a professional intelligence officer. Instead, they are described as “one-time agents” allegedly recruited online from vulnerable or criminal-adjacent backgrounds. Prosecutors believe the planned killing itself would have been carried out by different individuals.
However, the judge of Germany's Federal Court of Justice did not include allegations of preparing a murder in the arrest warrant. The suspects are formally under investigation only on suspicion of acting as intelligence agents.
Thumannhas repeatedly spoken publicly against Russia. In a post on LinkedIn, he wrote: “Russia does not want peace. It wants the destruction of the West,” according to Die Zeit.
According to the outlet, the entrepreneur is now under heightened security protection. He also indicated that attending public events has become too dangerous, telling followers that, “for certain reasons,” he is currently unable to participate in public appearances.
Several days earlier, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has inadvertently revealed that Germany's advanced RCH-155 wheeled self-propelled howitzers are already in Ukraine.
During a visit to the KNDS defense production facility in Kassel, Pistorius said the artillery system “is meeting with great approval in Ukraine,” providing the first indication from a senior German official that the long-awaited howitzers have already been delivered to the country.
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