While it very much tracks for assassination, it also seems to be a cultural thing to eat random mushrooms they find.

I have several Russian and Ukrainian friends in the states, and they always act like they’re seriously considering harvesting mushrooms we find in the wild and eating them. Every damn time, and it’s like a 2 minute conversation every time of me convincing them it’d be foolish and to just buy from the store.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was real. But I’ll just assume Putin anyway.

Wait, there’s noone collecting mushrooms there? It’s not random stuff of course, it’s species they know. And there’s a good chance you won’t find those is the shop.

No, very few people in the US collect mushrooms.

Also, the “it’s species they know” thing that’s often exactly the problem: there are species on one continent that look exactly like a species on another continent, but one of them is edible and the other is deadly. So some poor dumb bastard comes over here from Europe, sees some mushroom he “knows,” and then – whoops! – dead.

If you want to forage for mushrooms you need to find a local guide to teach you, and even then you’re putting your life in their hands.