During the Anglo-Soviet talks in Moscow on 10 October 1944, Churchill and Stalin sat in the same room to discuss the future of Europe, which had been devastated by the German war machine. The two began to outline the spheres of influence of the Eastern and Western powers, and the way in which a very early prototype agreement was put together was peculiar, to say the least. Churchill began scribbling on a piece of paper and, when he had finished, handed it to Stalin, who marked it with a blue pen to indicate his approval. On that small piece of paper, the fates of many European states, which were occupied by the Allied armies at that time, were preliminarily decided by simple percentages.

Romania was placed under almost total Soviet influence along with Bulgaria, thanks to Russia's interest in controlling maritime trade in the Black Sea, while Greece was placed under British influence and control of the Mediterranean Sea. Other countries such as Yugoslavia and Hungary were divided equally between the two men. This summary and simplistic division of countries with tens of millions of inhabitants is a clear sign of a cynical and cold approach to politics and international relations, which did not go unnoticed by Churchill himself, who asked Stalin, once the agreement had been finalised, whether it would be appropriate to burn the piece of paper, a proposal that was, however, calmly rejected by the Soviet head of state.

The British Prime Minister later defended himself to US President Roosevelt, stating that these were only temporary and emergency negotiations and that any permanent and official decisions would only be taken after the end of the conflict in the presence of the American delegation. As for the cynical tone of the agreement, Churchill justified himself by saying that everything had been done to delineate zones of influence as soon as possible and avoid civil wars in the occupied countries, while Soviet historians, after Stalin's death, rejected the event as a figment of the imagination, as their head of state would never have stooped to such imperialist agreements.