The founder of the German startup Donaustahl, Stefan Thumann, fears that he may be killed on the orders of Russian special services. Thumann gave an interview to the RTL television channel and the Stern magazine for the Stern Investigativ section. Excerpts from the conversation were published on Wednesday, August 19. "I have a duel with the Russian military intelligence for my life," emphasized the founder of the company that supplies reconnaissance drones and kamikaze drones, including to Ukraine. Thumann revealed that shortly before Christmas in 2025, he received information from German intelligence about an operation by Russian special services against him. According to the interviewee, he "is essentially living underground" and frequently changes his whereabouts. "I sleep in my office, next to my computer. I wake up, work, and go to sleep," Stefan Thumann described his daily routine. "I work all the time, including to avoid thinking about the situation," he admitted. ## ## Made a will and organ donation statement The founder of Donaustahl has made a will, an organ donation statement, and a directive to transfer to another person the rights to make important medical decisions in the event of loss of capacity. These are "things that at my age you usually don’t think about," admitted 39-year-old Stefan Thumann. "The war in Ukraine is also my personal war," he stated. For many citizens of Germany, these hostilities seem very distant, "but we are next," Thumann is convinced. ## ## Thumann was monitored by citizens of Ukraine and Romania Earlier, on August 5, the newspaper Die Zeit published an investigation that mentioned the preparation of a possible assassination attempt on Thumann. The signal that Stefan Thumann is in a zone of increased risk was received by German intelligence from one of the foreign intelligence agencies in December 2025, Die Zeit reports. Later, Bavarian police detained a certain Sergey N., who was filming videos near Thumann's house in Strasskirchen. The man had his phones confiscated, but the police did not manage to decrypt the data during the detention and released him. It later emerged that Sergey N. had contacted the Russian special service and was also monitoring Thumann's father. By that time, the suspect had already left for Spain with his family, and the observation of the head of Donaustahl was continued by a Romanian citizen, Alla S., who was living at that time in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. ## ## Espionage, not assassination In March 2026, Sergey N. and Alla S. were arrested on suspicion of espionage in favor of Russia. The version of preparing to kill Stefan Thumann was not included in the arrest warrant, Die Zeit points out. According to the publication, investigators considered the suspects to be "one-time agents" who are recruited online for money from people in the criminal underworld for sabotage and espionage. The assassination itself, according to the investigation, was to be carried out by other individuals. The CEO of the Rheinmetall group, Armin Papperger, has also long been under police protection and has personal bodyguards due to possible Russian plans for his elimination, the dpa agency reminded.
