Obviously it would be naive to take anything Vladimir Putin says at face value. But it’s possible that he actually does believe Russia has a valid historical claim on Ukrainian territory. Since Ukraine was once ruled by Russians, he seems to think that it should be ruled by Russians now.

This is a standard nationalistic way of thinking. But of course it’s facile rubbish. After all, practically every country on Earth has at some point been ruled in part or in whole by some other country. Which means that we all have an historical claim on someone. And equally, someone has an historical claim on us.

According to Putin’s logic, Ireland, India, Australia, Canada and scores of other countries should be ruled once more by the British. But at the same time, most of Britain should be ruled once more by Italians. Who in turn should be ruled once more by a combination of Germans, Spaniards and Frenchmen.

Here, though, the scenario becomes even more ridiculous. Because while most of Italy was at one point ruled by the French (under Napoleon), France was at another point ruled by the Italians (or at any rate the Romans). So, according to the Putin worldview, France has a right to reclaim Italy, and Italy has a right to reclaim France. Presumably, while the former is out reclaiming the latter, the latter will be out reclaiming the former.

Putin, of course, is interested only in former territories of Russia. In which case, perhaps he’ll eventually attempt to lay claim to Alaska, which belonged to the Russians from 1799 to 1867.

But if Russia can have historical claims on other countries, surely other countries can have historical claims on Russia. Around 700 years ago, Russia was ruled by the Mongols.

Perhaps, while Putin is distracted in the West, Mongolia should seize the opportunity to invade from the East, and reclaim its own former territory.

Putin’s poison

Next week marks the fourth anniversary of the attack that Putin launched on British soil: the poisonings of the Skripals in Salisbury. Afterwards, when Putin’s two henchmen protested their innocence on Russian television, we all derided their preposterous attempt at an alibi. According to them, they were simply two ordinary Russian fitness instructors who had flown 2,000 miles to spend a single weekend in Salisbury, purely so that they could marvel at “the famous Salisbury Cathedral” with its “123-metre spire”.

As was obvious to everyone, this was nonsense. All the same, I’ve always thought that we misinterpreted it. We assumed that Putin had ordered his two henchmen to give these nakedly absurd excuses as a way of trolling the West. Making fun of us. Rubbing it in.

Personally, though, I don’t think that’s what Putin was up to. He wasn’t trolling the West. He was punishing his henchmen.

After all, they had failed him. He had dispatched them to murder the Skripals, but the Skripals had survived. So I think that, as punishment, Putin decided to humiliate them. He forced them to make fools of themselves on television. He gave them this ludicrous script, and made them recite it, knowing that the whole world would watch and mock them.

But it wasn’t just the twaddle about the “123-metre spire” that was designed to embarrass them. It was the fact that they were on holiday at all. Two men in their 30s – “fitness instructors”, no less – going for a nice little weekend away together, just the pair of them?

Clearly, the inference we were intended to draw here was that these two men were gay. And, in the eyes of a virulent homophobe like Putin, nothing could be more embarrassing than that.

Building back better

Right now it isn’t easy to focus on anything other than Ukraine, but, for the sake of our own sanity, we should at least try. Perhaps we can distract ourselves by thinking about the increasingly eye-watering cost of renovating Parliament. The latest estimates were published this week. Apparently, if MPs choose not to move elsewhere while renovations are carried out, the job could cost as much as £22billion – and take as long as 76 years.

It sounds extraordinary. How these figures were calculated, I don’t know. But I like to imagine that getting a quote for building work on Parliament is much the same as getting a quote for building work on your house. I’m picturing a builder with a pencil tucked behind one ear, staring up at the Palace of Westminster alongside a parliamentary official, while shaking his head in pained disbelief.

“Sorry, guv, but the whole place is a blimmin’ death trap. What cowboy did this?”

“Augustus Pugin and Charles Barry.”

“Well, make sure you don’t ever use ’em again. Whole thing’s falling apart. And don’t get me started on the mess they’ve made of the wiring.”

“Well, they weren’t actually the ones who…”

“Yeah, gonna cost a packet to put all this right. I’ll send you a quote, but you’re probably looking at something around £22billion. Any chance you could pay cash?”

“I’m afraid not, no. How soon could the renovations commence?”

“Ooh, not sure about that, guv. Got a lot of jobs on at the moment. I’m booked up. But the work itself shouldn’t take too long. Reckon we’ll be in and out in no more than three quarters of a century.”

‘Way of the World’ is a twice-weekly satirical look at the headlines while aiming to mock the absurdities of the modern world. It is published at 7am every Tuesday and Saturday