‘Once NATO recovers, we’ll be there’: Russian FM Lavrov jokes about Macron’s ‘brain-dead NATO’ diagnosis

“I wouldn’t want to drag myself into a discussion about the medical side of this issue,” Lavrov told reporters, at an arms control event in Moscow on Friday.

He added, sarcastically:

“If Macron had felt that the diagnosis he made [of NATO] was so evident – he had all the right to state it. He knows NATO better than me, since he represents a nation which is a member of the alliance.”

Lavrov noted that Russia remains interested in building mutually-beneficial relations with the US-led bloc, which would be based on an equal footing.

The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the trans-Atlantic military alliance was designed for confrontation since its inception. He, too, quipped about Macron’s take on NATO's current state of affairs.

“Whether NATO is alive or dead, and which of its parts are comatose – that’s not for us to decide. We’re not pathologists.”

The French president had previously argued that NATO is undergoing its “brain death” due to the lack of coordination and understanding among its members.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg took offense at Macron’s unkind choice of words, saying that he had exaggerated the bloc’s internal struggle.