Fit to Leak: How Putin’s Elite Bodyguards Unwittingly Exposed Secret Locations on a Popular Fitness App

By using a fitness app, the Russian dictator’s bodyguards involuntarily reveal their location. The places make you sit up and take notice.

The social network and fitness app of the same name Strava is popular worldwide. Passionate athletes can run or cycle there and share their sporting activities with others. What for the majority of normal users mainly offers fun and an overview of their own progress and that of their friends quickly becomes a security risk for the powerful in the world.

In an investigation, the French newspaper “Le Monde” revealed that conclusions can be drawn about the locations of heads of state based on the movements of Vladimir Putin’s bodyguards on Strava. The Russian autocrat’s bodyguards also appear to be using the app – particularly near two luxury properties attributed to Putin, but whose ownership the Kremlin chief has officially denied for years.

The sports app Strava allows users to record their running routes and share them publicly. However, many people are unaware that they are inadvertently exposing geoinformation data and therefore their location. This could now be unpleasant for Putin: “Le Monde” research traced the routes of the Kremlin ruler’s bodyguards, which showed that they were close to a vast and magnificent estate on the Black Sea and a country estate in the Karelia region.

Plans have emerged in the past regarding the disputed property on the Black Sea which are intended to show how Putin should defend himself on the secret property. The property with the Italian designed palace is said to be almost 40 times the size of Monaco. (Read more about this here.)

The investigations by “Le Monde” now show that at least four agents from the Federal Security Service (FSO), responsible for protecting the Russian president, have been in the vicinity of the facility several times between 2019 and 2024 – always between the end. from August and 2024 End of September. The suspicion is that Putin was also there during the same period.

The data shows that a member of the FSO also made several laps around a property in the Karelia region of northern Russia on August 4, 2021. Putin also denies owning it. (You can read more about Putin’s dacha near Finland here.) On his six kilometer route, the guard ran along the fence that surrounds the villa on the extensive grounds and started and finished his run in a hangar on the grounds.

The French newspaper notes that the same agents are often present at the president’s official appointments. The research revealed that one of the bodyguards in the Brazilian capital, Brasilia, around the BRICS summit in 2019.

This could represent a significant weakness in the operations of the Russian leader, who is otherwise extremely concerned about his security. Putin himself refrains from using smartphones and computers for security reasons. His offices in each of his residences were also precisely recreated so that no conclusions could be drawn about his real whereabouts based on video transmissions.

Running app Strava hit the headlines recently after a Russian army officer was killed during a run in July 2023. The military used the app regularly. After his last post was liked by the director of Ukrainian military intelligence, there was speculation that the soldier had been murdered by Ukrainian forces. It is not clear if it was a genuine account or a provocation by a user.