Cold War Chiller as Putin’s Face Found on Aberdeen Angus Steak.

By Our Defence Editor: Doug Trench

Shoppers at the Ipswich branch of Waitrose were left deeply unsettled on Tuesday morning after discovering the face of Vladimir Putin staring back at them from inside a shrink-wrapped Aberdeen Angus Beef Sizzle Steak.

The £4.99 cut, intended for quick frying, instead appeared to be modelling the Russian President’s signature look: granite-faced stoicism, narrowed KGB-issue glare and, as several witnesses independently confirmed, a perfectly formed “cat’s-arse mouth.”

“It blinked at me,” insisted regular shopper Pauline Merton, though staff later confirmed this was merely condensation gathering on the plastic wrap. Even so, many customers reported a peculiar sense of being judged for their dinner choices.

The spy who fed me

The steak was spotted just after 9am by an off-duty geography teacher who initially assumed it was part of a Waitrose “Taste of Eastern Europe” promotion. Upon realising it was not, he alerted staff, who stood around the fridge in a silent huddle, trying to determine whether the resemblance fell under customer service, food safety or diplomatic protocol.

While most agreed it was “almost certainly a coincidence,” others noted that recent reports of Russian espionage in and around Britain could not be entirely dismissed. “You can laugh,” said one unnamed shopper, “but if you told me Moscow was testing a new breed of surveillance steak, I’d believe you.”

A Waitrose spokesperson confirmed the steak had been removed from sale for “routine assessment,” though insiders report it has been placed in the staff-room freezer “to prevent any further alarm.”

No comment has yet been issued by the Kremlin, but sources suggest Putin would consider the likeness “a respectful tribute,” albeit one he hopes will be grilled “medium-rare at most.”