Leaked WhatsApp messages show Didier Reynders' close contact with Belgian intelligence official

Messages from 2019 to 2022

EUObserver and De Tijd published a series of WhatsApp messages on 23 October 2026 between Didier Reynders (MR) and Hughes Brulin, who was staff director at the Belgian State Security Service (VSSE) until late 2022. The two wrote to each other regularly from 2019 until the end of 2022, when Reynders was foreign minister and later became EU commissioner for justice. The messages were found on Reynders' mobile phone during a money-laundering and corruption investigation run by the Brussels prosecutor-general's office. Most of the published exchanges concern Nicolas Ullens de Schooten, a former VSSE officer who had targeted Reynders with corruption allegations. It is less clear whether any secrets were exchanged, and the open question is whether Brulin breached his professional secrecy.

A message after the probe was dropped

On Friday, 27 September 2019, the evening a corruption investigation into Reynders was dismissed, Brulin sent him a message. Its translated wording wished him good health with a single malt and offered to be available for a 'counterattack' if Reynders thought it fitting. Reynders thanked him for his friendly support. At that time Reynders was vice-prime minister, responsible among other things for foreign affairs and defence, and had been proposed for the European Commission, although his formal appointment was not yet final. Brulin had been appointed to a newly created post under the government of Prime Minister Charles Michel. Internal VSSE sources said he never worked on case files or had access to confidential dossiers, and that he handled logistics, ICT and HR.

An alleged attempt to block the Russia inquiry

Five former and current Belgian intelligence officers told EUObserver that Brulin's real task was to stop the VSSE from investigating Reynders and checking his possible links with Russia. The clearest example dates from December 2022, when Brulin wrote that the 'mission' had largely been accomplished and Reynders, by then a European commissioner, replied 'Well done for the work'. According to the same investigation, Brulin also suggested ways to 'counterattack' a whistleblower linked to the Russia allegations. In September the Brussels prosecutor's office confirmed that it was again examining Reynders' links with Moscow. Those links concern the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who is on EU and US blacklists and whom EUObserver describes as a close associate of Vladimir Putin.

Money-laundering suspicion and a separate inquiry

Reynders is suspected of laundering money for years by buying National Lottery scratch cards with cash. Belgian police searched several locations linked to him in December 2024, when the suspicion centred on the National Lottery, which he once led. Prosecutors opened a separate inquiry into his links with Deripaska after searches at an antiques shop run by an art dealer who is a friend of Reynders. Belgian financial intelligence reportedly considered a Brussels art foundation linked to both men as a vehicle for laundering money for the oligarch.

Reactions

Reynders' lawyer told De Tijd that the leak breached the secrecy of the investigation and the rights of the defence, and said he would inform the investigating judge. He described the exchanges as routine contacts with a former colleague who had himself become a victim of Ullens' inventions. The FOD Justitie, where Brulin now works, said it could not comment on judicial files, while the VSSE declined to respond because the official no longer works there. In Poland, Krzysztof Bosak, deputy speaker of the Sejm, called Reynders a swindler on X. Mariusz Kamiński, a Polish member of the European Parliament and former interior minister, said:

“According to the journalistic investigation, Reynders tried to torpedo the work of Belgian special services so that his links with Russia would not be examined.”

Kamiński added that the matter must be fully clarified and that, if Russia had influenced the European Commission through Reynders, the scandal would be enormous.