Moscow, Kyiv assassins hunt weapons bosses as Ukraine war spills beyond the battlefield

A new and dangerous dimension of the Russia-Ukraine war is taking shape far from the front lines, as executives, engineers, and founders behind the drone technology reshaping the conflict increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs of assassins and spies, according to industry experts and recent incidents reported across multiple countries.

The targeting appears to reflect a simple calculation: in a war where unmanned aircraft have become decisive, the small number of people capable of designing and producing them have become strategic assets worth hunting down.

In Russia, two senior figures in the country's drone industry have come under attack in recent weeks. On July 28-29, Andrei Cherezov, who leads a Russian drone company, was shot three times in the city of Tula in what Ukrainian outlet Pravda described as an apparent assassination attempt. Days later, on Aug. 4, a car bombing near Yekaterinburg critically injured Vladimir Tkachuk, head of the Russian drone manufacturer Uraldronzavod, and killed his driver, according to Russian state news agency TASS. Tkachuk's company produces the "Upyr," or "Ghoul," a first-person-view attack drone used by Russian forces in Ukraine. Authorities have not publicly attributed either attack to Ukraine.

The campaign is not confined to Russian soil. In Germany, authorities have arrested two suspected operatives accused of spying on a Bavarian drone manufacturer on behalf of Russian intelligence, according to the German newspaper Die Zeit. Reports this month indicated the alleged operation included preparations to target company executive Stefan Thumann. The case follows a reported 2024 plot, disrupted by U.S. and German intelligence, to target Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger — a scheme that NATO officials later described as part of a broader sabotage campaign against the alliance's defense supply chain.

Cameron Chell, CEO of the Canadian drone manufacturer Draganfly, said the pattern reflects a tactical shift driven by the war's evolving technology. Drone manufacturing tends to be distributed and difficult to fully dismantle, he explained, which makes the leadership of those companies a more achievable objective.

"When you can't take out all the distributed infrastructure, drone manufacturing leadership becomes the primary target," Chell said.

He added that the strikes in Russia, Ukraine, and Germany against founders, leaders, and engineers of drone and defense companies reflect the operational impact of the technology itself. "Because drone technology evolves rapidly — often with significant iterations occurring every 10 to 30 days — targeting a key engineer, founder, or product lead creates immediate operational disruptions on the battlefield," Chell said. "Taking out a particular engineer or taking out a particular leader can set a very important weapons program back quite some time and disrupt shipments to the front line."

Chell argued that as Ukraine and Russia move toward artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons systems, the engineers developing those capabilities are becoming even more strategically important. "What we see in the Ukraine-Russia conflict is nobody in the loop — total autonomy is the direction things are going because it moves with more speed and precision," he said. "[AI and total autonomy] are the big innovations for the next 18 months, so a potential reason we could see more targeted activity against leaders is because Ukrainians have that technology advantage."

The relative accessibility of these targets, compared with state-run weapons programs, makes them attractive, Chell said. "Targeting small drone companies is a relatively easy operation compared to targeting individuals in state-run weapons programs," he noted. "It is a fairly inexpensive, low-risk tactic for intelligence agencies that yields an immediate impact on the battlefield, and that's why we've seen this tactic."

The two sides, he said, appear to be pursuing the goal with different methods. "I wouldn't suggest one side has an advantage over the other in terms of tactics, but psychologically, it has a deeper effect on the Russian side," Chell said. "The volume of drone advantage will remain with the Russians for the foreseeable future, but the innovation of drones, tactics, and technology lies with the Ukrainians right now."

He described Ukrainian operations as blunt and direct, shaped by the existential stakes of the war. "Ukraine faces an existential threat, so they are ready for anything. Their tactics tend to be much more blunt — a direct shooter in a hallway or a car bomb," Chell said. Russian operations, by contrast, he characterized as drawing on a deep institutional playbook. "The Russian tactics tend to be much more state-organized, using old Cold War tactics: low-level contacts, extensive intelligence and surveillance ahead of time, and inserting into other countries like Germany," he said. "The Russians have a long-standing, well-established intelligence infrastructure dating back to World War II and the Cold War."

The escalation has put the drone industry on notice. Chell said companies are now working more closely with law enforcement and intelligence agencies to protect executives and engineers, both physically and digitally. "We are very cognizant of it, and we're in contact with the proper authorities to make sure we're taking precautions on both a cyber and physical level to ensure we're at less risk," he said. "We certainly don't take anything for granted."

He said the industry has responded with new training and protective programs focused on awareness, cybersecurity, and physical security for senior personnel. "There are training and programs in place to ensure executives have a level of safety, primarily around awareness, cybersecurity, and physical location protection," Chell said. "We as an industry are taking it with a measured amount more seriously."

The recent attacks and arrests suggest that the war's technological revolution is now producing a new kind of casualty — not soldiers on the battlefield, but the engineers and executives whose work determines which side can field the next generation of autonomous weapons.