42 year-old Stanislav Rzhitsky was shot dead on Monday (10th July) whilst out jogging in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar.
Rzhitsky was an ex-naval submarine captain who worked as a mobilisation officer.
The Russian Investigative Committee suspect that the killer(s) waited to ambush Rzhitsky by examining his regular running routes on the Strava app he used – Rzhisky’s activity data is set to public on the Strava platform.
The former Naval officer was shot in the back and the chest seven times by an unidentified gunman while he was taking his morning jog in a park near the Olimp sports centre.
At the time of the murder, the park was almost empty due to heavy rain, so there is little chance of any witnesses, however CCTV image of a suspect has been released by Russian authorities investigating the murder.
Revenge attack possible motive
Russian news outlet – Mash – reported on the incident, and stated that Rzhitsky’s watch and headphones were found at the scene, indicating robbery was not the motive.
Whilst a serving officer in the Russian navy, Cpt Rzhitsky reportedly commanded the Krasnodar submarine.
It is almost 1 year since the Krasnodar launched a missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytisia which resulted in the death of 27 people. It is unknown if Rzhitsky was the commander in charge of the Krasnodar at the time of the missile launch.
Strava data has been in the news multiple times over the years for incidents where data has been used to identify information relating to both personal, and military locations, however, this is the first time Strava data has been linked to the murder of an individual.
I have previously posted about issues surrounding Strava shared location data:
(12/05/23) – Blog 132 – Strava users hidden locations revealed
(12/06/23) – Blog 163 – aggregation of data proves “anonymity” functions near-useless