OREANDA-NEWS. Former NATO Secretary General George Robertson said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, during one of the meetings of the Russia-NATO Council, joked in such a way that it horrified the Polish delegation. It is reported by Foreign Policy.

According to Robertson, the situation occurred at the first meeting of the Council. Then Putin asked with a serious look: “Can I suggest renaming NATO headquarters to the House of Soviets?” According to the ex-secretary general of the North Atlantic Alliance, the translator then understood the allusion to the Soviet Union and translated Putin's phrase as House of Soviets.

Robertson stressed that the Polish delegation was horrified after this phrase, but "it was just a joke of the President of Russia."

The former NATO Secretary General also added that he first met Putin in February 2000. Then the Russian president told Robertson that he would like to "renew relations with the North Atlantic Alliance step by step."

Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg promised that the alliance would soon send its own written proposals to Russia in response to Moscow's security proposals.

On December 17, 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry published draft security guarantees from the United States and NATO. In the document, in particular, the parties undertake to eliminate all existing infrastructure for the deployment of nuclear weapons outside their territory, exercise restraint in military planning and during exercises to reduce the risks of possible dangerous situations, and not take actions that affect each other's security.