Stanislav Rzhitsk, who was commanding a submarine in the Russian Navy, had started his day in the port city, as usual, with his morning run. It was a routine for Commander-in-Chief Rzhitsk, as he knew the importance of always being prepared as a soldier, and he understood the role of exercise in this context.
He recorded his training sessions on the Strava app, a popular application among athletes, and shared some data about it, such as the distance he covered and the time it took him to complete the run.
While some of these shares remained on users' personal pages, others quickly went publicly visible for everyone. Stanislav Rzhitsk was one of those who would openly share his data.
However, this time, things took a different turn. According to allegations reported in the Russian media, Rzhitsk was assassinated before he could share the data of his morning run. Though the identity of the perpetrator remains unclear, an intriguing detail did not go unnoticed. One of the individuals who liked Rzhitsk's last data sharing on the sports app was the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine.
In the recent years, some similar incidents have shown the need for a new approach to resist intelligence, perhaps even for demonstrating a different perspective. In fact, countries, including Türkiye, are already providing clear guidelines to personnel working in critical institutions on how to avoid such events.
Until recently, these recommendations were mainly focused on "within the organization," but now, they clearly indicate the necessity for individuals to be extremely cautious in both their professional and personal lives.
Commander-in-Chief Rzhitsk is not the first, and it seems he won't be the last, either.
Russian soldiers had taken smartphones to their deaths.
Russia is currently engaged in a serious war with Ukraine. In such a situation, it is expected that everyone involved in this process, especially military units, strictly adheres to the rules. However, even in an environment where the risk of death is extremely high, sometimes it can be difficult to achieve that.
Despite all the prohibitions, Moscow had sometimes failed to achieve this. At the beginning of this year, Ukrainian forces targeted a building in Makiivka with missiles. The building was filled with soldiers. According to Russian sources, 89 soldiers lost their lives in the attack. This number was recorded as an event where Russia lost a significant number of soldiers in one instance since WW1. According to the Ukrainian side, hundreds of Russian soldiers also died in this attack.
Immediately after the attack, some open-source data showed that Ukraine based this action on just a single piece of information - signals from cell phones. It was a war zone, and most of the local residents had evacuated and moved to other places. The simultaneous signals from dozens of cell phones in a single building were enough for Ukraine to target them.
Open source intelligence can lead to serious consequences.
We previously told you about the process that ledCommander-in-Chief Rzhitsk to his death. Actually, this is not the first incident of its kind. Years ago, a similar fitness program had also exposed some secret US military bases.
Once again, it was the same program, Strava, but this time used by US soldiers, and the program was openly publishing members' heat maps on their website. In 2018, a security student closely examined the program and made some interesting discoveries. For example, focusing on Syria on the map, they were able to identify known and secret locations of US soldiers.
Another individual examining the same map found running activities near the beach close to a CIA base in the capital cof Somalia, Mogadishu. A journalist was able to identify the locations of US Special Operations bases in the Sahel region of Africa. Additionally, a Twitter user discovered the location of a Patriot missile system in Yemen.
The reason these locations were easily identified was that the majority of them were vast and desolate deserts, remote and uninhabited places. Having a heat map in such areas was contrary to the normal flow of life, making it not too difficult to uncover the truth.
Similar issues had also occurred in Türkiye.
The examples from abroad should not lead us to think that such situations had not occurred in Türkiye. In fact, despite the Turkish Armed Forces' (TSK) clear and strict regulations, similar incidents have occurred in our country many times.
One of the most notable examples is from 2019 when a soldier serving in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) shared his leave paper on social media, and what followed.
Greek media was focused on the term "Artillery Unit" mentioned on the leave paper and claimed that Türkiye had brought 155 mm howitzers to the island without anyone's knowledge.
Similarly, in operations in Syria and Libya, as well as in cross-border counter-terrorism operations, some postings were made which not only compromised the execution of the mission but also seriously endangered the safety of personnel.
Comprehensive investigations were initiated regarding these soldiers, and relevant penalties were applied, while the Ministry of National Defense of Türkiye made serious efforts to prevent such mistakes from being repeated.
