In a worrying geopolitical development, the world last night appeared to be slipping into a new Cold War, in the absence of any encouraging signs of a hot one. The Slog outlines the story so far.

La Dépêche was in the front rank of press titles here only too keen to express its inability to find any substantive beef in the crisis bun. In a bid to attach blame for the missing element onto Vladimir Rasputin, the paper asked, "What is Poutine playing at?".

The job of the 21st century MSM being not to explain but rather to ask the reader for help, it is the solemn task of the pan-galactic Slog Empire to inform CNN viewers who can't tell a vacuous vaccine from a vapourised virus whether the Ukraine is just full of shit, or a fart in a hurricane.

Vlad the Lad isn't playing at anything. He is quite content (he told me in a friendly tete-a-tete yesterday) to merely ask simple questions like, "Suppose I was winding up the Mexican administration under Andrés Manuel López Obrador to speed up electricity reform and screw US globalist companies while arming the country with field weapons to level Texas? How'd you feel about that, smartypants?" Or maybe, "So when Bush Sr said 'we won't move a yard further east against you', he was lying through his closely-watched lips, right?"

But throughout the Pentagon, NATO, the EU and at parties across Whitehall, the lack of concessions and unmet demands left diplomats drawing a blank in terms of what hadn't been conceded or demanded. Bloomberg anchor Jack Offten told viewers this afternoon, "The White House remains consistent in blaming Putin the baby-eater for "demanding US unmet demands be conceded without making any threats, but declined to comment on what unmet concessions might be demanded should threats be forthcoming".

White House press secretary Isadora Warhole told a late afternoon presser, "It is our considered view that Vladimir Putin farted inappropriately and serially during the negotiations, and that this was not involuntary but in fact cunningly premeditated. Thus, the party of the latter part must unequivocally and preferably silently withdraw the farty outburst of the first part before the restarty of any further discussions that were ongoing before the later party emitted the fart of the earlier part".

However, at an impromptu press conference outside the Pentagon complex yesterday evening, 7-bar blues General Upshot V. Badley 3rd distanced himself from Warhole's view when he explained quietly, "NOW HEAR THIS....I will not go down in history as the soldier who fought the War of Putin's Fart - so get the fuck real, people: we godda get our guys in there before the Russkies do and then call their retaliation an unprovoked First Strike cos that's the Murican way, so help me Gard".

At last - as the shadows lengthened - US Secretary of State Andno Blinken clarified that the US had made no concessions in response to two Putin demands, viz, that the US and allies stop preparations for an invasion that doesn't exist, and that the Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations shall not be encouraged to join NATO, which they haven't been. 96% of those polled in an EU-wide survey said they would be unlikely to vote for a war about fictional futures, but as they were unlikely to be asked anyway, they would carry on worrying about fictional vaccine boosters which would dramatically curtail their futures anyway and thus solve the problem, should there ever appear to be one.

German leader Geli Mirakel stepped in to escalate the tension by telling the Allgemeiner Mineshaft she would "ban all ze exports of Wurst to ze Russian Bear and boycott any of zat filthy Untermenschen Putin gaz giffen vee here in ze Vierte Reich are now fully ekvipped mit die grossen Propellern zat are sometimes turning and sometimes not", and Manny Macron of the Black Member élite corps was spotted taking part in frantic manoeuvres as he drove around Paris on his favourite Think Tank.

In a last ditch attempt to snatch war from the jaws of waffle, British rumba expert and keen partygoer Doris Jobsdone (left) entered the fray, observing, "I have spoken at great length to our boffins at Porton Down and the chaps at Sage, and they are absolutely emphatic in their belief Mr Rasputin plans to release Novochok bombs at any moment designed to cause a complete lockdown of NATO thus allowing him to reach Calais by next Sunday without a single member of the Russian army wearing a mask of any kind. Thus, I have been reliably informed that my Government will be sending Rishi Sunak to lead Britain's crack trainspotting brigade into Kiev, and the highly contemptible Sturmey Archers to the Ukrainian border with Greece. So we must steel ourselves to the task of finding something worth sending an ultimatum about and then jolly well get orn with it so we can have a top-notch piss-up in secret".

Finally, overnight US Hollowgram Joe Biden warned there was a "distinct possibility Russia might invade Ukraine next month, which only has, uh, 24 days in it so we cannot be complacent because we have been warning about this for months but so far the goddamn son of a bitch has refused point blank to invade". And the gloom across the world deepened as the Russian side confirmed that "Russia sees little ground for optimism in resolving the crisis as President Putin has no desire whatsoever to invade unless the Americans do".

Yes folks, the lights are going out all over the State Department.