How the Strava app could have caused the death of a Russian soldier

The details of the case are still unclear, but one element is almost certain: Strava, the application dedicated to recording sports activities, could well have hastened the death of Vladislav Rjitskiï. This Russian captain and submariner was killed on July 10 in Krasnodar, not far from the Crimea.

While jogging, the man received seven pistol bullets that killed him instantly. Few elements are known at the moment, but according to The worldThe military man was a regular user of the Strava application, which allows its users to share their performance in 37 different activities, generally running or cycling.

Vladislav Rjitskiï thus regularly published his travels on the app, which would have allowed those responsible for his death to know his daily routes and therefore easily locate him on the day of his death.

“Save, sweat, share”

The Strava app, created in 2009, puts its whole concept into sharing sports-related data, with an unequivocal tagline: “Record. Sweat. Share” appearing at the top of its website. Strava claims to be the largest sports community in the world, with over 100 million athletes in 195 different countries.

However, the shared data may be visible to people other than your own fellow racers. In fact, all users can see the performances, for example, through the rankings or the public challenges of the segments executed or shot.

Data accessible to all

You can also see the detailed activity page of each athlete and it shows all the details of the sessions performed by the user. When you choose “All” [dans vos paramètres de confidentalité]anyone on the internet will see a disconnected version of your activity page including activity distance, elevation, travel time, pace/speed, calories, effort measurement, photos, map, profile of elevation, the best performances, the intermediate times, the matches of popular segments, the duration of your effort, the praise and the comments ”, indicates in particular the Strava site.

To modify these parameters, you must go to the “Privacy Controls” tab, where you can choose to show your data to “Everyone”, to your “Followers”, or to keep it private.

A parameter change that could be useful for athletes who do not wish to make their precise geolocation available to everyone. Already in 2018, DGSE spies had been identified at their workplace and hideout by the jogging data they had shared on Strava.