On the one hand, there's a sumptuous palace on the shores of the Black Sea, said to have cost over a billion euros to build. On the other, a luxurious dacha on one of the countless lakes in the Russian republic of Karelia, on the border with Finland. Almost 2,000 kilometers separate the two properties, but they have one thing in common: Their immediate surroundings are regularly frequented by Vladimir Putin's bodyguards.

Is the Russian president the proud owner of these second homes? That's at least what his opponents have been claiming: The late Alexei Navalny claimed Putin owned the palace in 2021, and more recently ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky put the spotlight on the dacha, through the Dossier Center investigative unit he funds. Embarrassing accusations about the Russian president's supposed fortune, which the Kremlin has always vigorously brushed aside. However, Le Monde has discovered new information that lends these accusations further credence.

In a series of investigations, we revealed how the bodyguards of French and American presidents share information on the movements of their country's leaders. A security breach of unprecedented proportions related to their compulsive use of Strava, a sports app athletes use to record and share their activity. Most of these activities are geolocated, making it possible to track the movements of world leaders, meaning we can find out in advance where they are staying, and also discover almost everything about the private lives of these less-than-rigorous agents.

Bodyguards reveal their whereabouts online

Putin is no exception; he was also betrayed by the carelessness of members of the Federal Protection Service (FSO). It's the last straw for the Kremlin head who, as a matter of prudence, uses neither a smartphone nor a computer connected to the Internet, and whose office has been reconstructed identically in each of his residences so that no one can ever know where he is.

On November 13 and 14, 2019, for example, Putin traveled to Brasilia to take part in an international summit bringing together the leaders of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). But on November 11, Andrei (all first names have been changed), an FSO agent, was already on site. To scout and secure the site, he stayed at the B Hotel, the same establishment where Putin prepared to stay. So, while awaiting his arrival, Andrei went for an eight-kilometer jog, starting and finishing at the foot of the hotel. An activity he recorded via Strava. This confidential and highly sensitive information ended up being shared publicly online.

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