Russia and Ukraine

[Anomalocaris]

there is a rumor that Russian ministers and head of government had a tradition of pranking eachother by sneaking ripe tomatoes on to the chair of the one who has bad news to report, just before the victim sits down.  so if the one reporting the news failed to notice, he would be waking around with giant tomato stain on the seat of his pants for the rest of the meeting.

rumor has it that started with joseph stalin.

I suspect either putin or all of his ministers had bad news to report.