EditMoscow takes the College of Commissioners more seriously than Brussels does
L’Express reveals Russian scenarios that include killing a commissioner; perhaps it is time the institutions noticed too
L’Express has done the decent thing and published the contents of a confidential September French intelligence note, so the rest of us can stop pretending the hybrid-war brief is only about mysterious warehouse fires and drones that fail to explode.
Among the scenarios now being gamed out in Paris are the assassination of an EU Commissioner, sabotage operations that accept civilian deaths, and electronic jamming capable of bringing down a civilian airliner. The most likely path, the note says, is simply more of what has already been observed, only louder, sometime around early 2027.
The Commissioner line is the novelty. Defence-industry bosses and exiled critics have featured in earlier plots; a member of the College is a promotion. On the reasonable assumption that the French services are not inventing this for the exercise, Moscow appears to take the Commission more seriously than quite a few people who work in it. The more plausible names are not the Commissioners for social rights or research. Kaja Kallas and Andrius Kubilius sit on the sanctions, defence and hybrid-threat desks; they travel, they appear in public, and they do so without the permanent close protection that would be automatic for a minister of similar profile in most member states. Security details tend to appear for the awkward missions and vanish again afterwards.
It is difficult to say which member of the Commission the Russians hate and despise most. The note does not name names, and the College contains several people who have spent the past few years making Moscow’s life more expensive. Our bet would still go to Kallas. She occupies the foreign-policy seat, signs the sanctions packages, and has a habit of describing Russian actions in language that does not require a translator in the Kremlin. Kubilius runs a close second on the defence brief, but Kallas is the one who turns up most often when the hybrid file is being read aloud. If the French assessment is even roughly right, she is already the clearest illustration of the gap between how seriously Moscow treats the Commission and how lightly the Commission still protects its own.
Which brings us to the modest administrative suggestion. If the services that are studying these people have already decided they matter, it may be time for the institutions that employ them to reach the same conclusion and keep a couple of bodyguards on the payroll full-time. It is not a declaration of war. It is the bureaucratic equivalent of finally locking the front door after the neighbours have started leaving notes. The leak itself already functions as the polite half of the message; permanent protection would be the practical half. Our Commissioners have spent years explaining why Europe must be taken seriously. The least we can do is return the favour.
Caption: EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas arrives to chair the EU Foreign Affairs Council on Defence in Brussels, Belgium, 28 September 2026. EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET
Updated: October 1, 2026 - 15:34
