[Your source is a “top Russian military commander.” You crack me up. Did you ever hear of the cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov and later the Soyuz 11 crew? We listened to their comms as they were crashing to their deaths, and then we read the lying tripe that the Russian authorities trotted out as the “official” reports of the mishaps, and they were nothing like what we heard direct from the sources themselves. We listened to all your stuff, Ivan.]
“So they transmitted in the clear? I thought the Russian space program was integrally linked to its military, so encryption would be SOP.”
Telemetry and Sigint were generally encrypted; but voice was just scrambled, if it wasn’t in the clear. And I’m talking about more than fifty years ago. We knew what they were saying and transmitting. I have no idea what they have now, but whatever it is I’m sure it would likely make what they used back then seem primitive by comparison.