Originally Posted by
uxb99
The only problem I have with this is how are they intercepting a mobile phone transmission?
I worked in telecoms and mobile phone signals are encrypted. Very difficult to intercept and decrypt. Not impossible but very difficult.
All telecom switches support law inforcement taps. The transmission is only encrypted over the air. So, if the Russians connect to Ukrainian mobile networks and initiate regular voice calls, it's game over.
A less likely method, if you don't have control over the mobile network, is to use Stingray devices. They can force the phone to use older encryption methods that can be defeated in real time. But you need to be quite close to the mobile phone in most cases, so I don't think that's how they do it. It would only make sense if the Russians would have control over some parts of the mobile networks.