I believe it's symmetric AES256, and you load the keys into the radios with a wired/dedicated keyloader device. The Russians must have some hack into wherever

I believe it's symmetric AES256, and you load the keys into the radios with a wired/dedicated keyloader device. The Russians must have some hack into wherever the keys are being stored centrally before they get into the keyloader. Or, more mundanely, they don't rotate the keys often, and the Russians just have some number of stolen radios. You can find videos of both sides picking up radios with drones too.