Opening remarks by Commissioner Kubilius at the Launch Event of the 3rd Hybrid Threats Report

First, welcome to the Berlaymont. And thank you for this very important report.

I have it on my desk in my office. I have read very thoroughly and highly recommend it.

I thank all of you who worked on it - from the Joint Research Centre and the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats.

I always say we have three pillars of defence readiness:

Material defence readiness – the power of money, the power of production.

Institutional defence readiness  - the power of organisation – organisation of our defence.

Political defence readiness – our willpower to defend, and to unite for our defence.

All three pillars are equally important, and if we fail in one of the pillars - the whole defence readiness fails.

Political defence readiness -  is really what your report is all about: how to defend our willpower against hybrid attacks, targeted to destroy it.

Political defence readiness is the absolute precondition for our defence. If there is no will to fight, it doesn't matter how many tanks or drones you have or how well organised you are.

History is full of examples of kingdoms, countries and empires that have fallen, because they lacked the will to fight and defend themselves.

And with threats and hybrid attacks, Russia is now actively attempting to undermine our will to fight and defend ourselves. And especially our will to support Ukraine.

Those who know Russia, they know that  this is nothing new. Russian hybrid warfare dates already from Soviet times. Now it has a new name, known as the “Gerasimov doctrine”, which declares there are no dividing lines between occupation of the hearts and minds of the people  and attempts to occupy the territory.

We see how Russia is now applying this strategy against the EU and NATO Member States.

As your report shows, there are more attacks and worse attacks.

In recent years we've seen murders, fires, drone provocations, jamming and spoofing.