Brussels has a credibility crisis. Newly released documents from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation reveal that Europe's human rights commissioner maintained extensive contacts with individuals linked to the Kremlin - precisely what Ukrainian officials had been warning about for years.
The files, released by US authorities this week, show a pattern of relationships that Kyiv flagged as early as 2019. Ukrainian diplomats repeatedly raised concerns that Europe's top human rights official was serving as what one cable termed a "useful idiot" for Russian interests within EU institutions.
Brussels ignored them.
"We provided specific intelligence about these connections," a senior Ukrainian foreign ministry official told Euromaidan Press. "Brussels chose not to listen because it was inconvenient."
The institutional failure runs deep. How did Europe's vetting process miss - or overlook - ties to both the Epstein network and individuals with documented Kremlin connections? The answer appears to be that Brussels was warned and simply didn't care enough to act.
The Epstein files show email exchanges between the human rights commissioner and intermediaries who European intelligence services had flagged as Russian influence operatives. One 2013 message discusses meetings in Paris with individuals Ukrainian intelligence later identified as FSB assets.
This isn't just about Epstein. This is about Russian penetration of EU institutions at the highest levels - and about Brussels' catastrophic failure to take Ukrainian warnings seriously before the 2022 invasion.
"If they had listened to us about this, maybe they would have listened to us about Crimea, about the military buildup, about everything else," the Ukrainian official said.
The European Commission issued a terse statement Wednesday saying it takes "all allegations seriously" and will "review procedures." That's Brussels-speak for: we got caught, we're embarrassed, and we'll form a committee to make it go away.
Meanwhile, members of the European Parliament are demanding answers. Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian liberal MEP, called the revelations "an institutional disgrace" and demanded the Commissioner's immediate resignation.
"How many warnings do we need before we take threats to European security seriously?" Verhofstadt said in a floor speech Thursday.
The scandal comes at a particularly awkward moment for Brussels, which has spent years lecturing member states about rule of law and democratic values. It's harder to make that case when your own house is compromised.
What makes this especially galling is the timeline. Ukrainian officials raised these concerns in 2019 and 2021 - before the full-scale invasion. If Brussels had acted then, how different might Europe's intelligence picture have been?
Brussels decides more than you think. Today it decided to finally take Ukrainian warnings seriously - about four years and hundreds of thousands of lives too late.
The human rights commissioner has not resigned and has declined all interview requests. A spokesperson said the official "categorically denies" all allegations and insists the relationships were "purely professional."
That's the same defense used by every compromised official in history. Brussels owes Europe - and especially Ukraine - better than this.
