The Soviet-Israeli War, 1967–1973. The USSR’s Military Intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli Conflict

THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973

enemy], but you owe the Motherland and the pilots’ families to bring them back alive

rather than in zinc coffins.”^67

Nastenko puts the force earmarked for Eg ypt at seventy MiG-21s (of the naval
variant, which was better armed for interception of Israeli Mirage fighters than the
Air Force version) and 102 pilots. According to aviation historian Zhirokhov,

these Soviet pilots were ... selected from amongst the very best. They had been rated as 1st,

or at least 2nd, class and some had an enormous number of flying hours to their credit.

Before leaving the USSR they had to pass a theoretical examination and undertake special

training flights at the Central Asian airbase of Mary [now Merv in Turkmenistan], where

the desert climate was considered comparable to that of Eg ypt.^68

This prior training went on for a month. Col. Boris Abramov, who would soon be
assigned as a staff officer at the Moscow headquarters of Kavkaz, admitted
retrospectively:

The intention was excellent, but the implementation very poor. First it was decided to train

the crews for flight at minimal altitude, but a catastrophe ensued when a pilot hit the

ground. The lowest approved altitude was immediately raised, [but] another catastrophe

[occurred]. The flights at minimum altitude were stopped completely. ... Our pilots arrived

in Eg ypt and immediately encountered a severe reality, where they had to fly so low that

the sand was blown [off the ground].

Abramov attributes both the combat and accidental losses that the Soviet air group
would incur to this deficient training.^69 “One of the men who went through this
procedure” is quoted by Zhirokhov as blaming a different problem: “those who
trained them and tested their flying capabilities took the matter very seriously. Their
briefings did, however, tend to emphasize the weaknesses rather than the strengths of
the Israeli Mirages which the Soviet pilots would soon have to face.”^70 At any rate,
they were deemed ready for departure by mid-September 1969.
That month, the number of Soviet military interpreters in Eg ypt alone reached at
least 430; since only top commanders had personal interpreters attached while others
had to share them at a ratio of 4–5:1 at best, the number of advisers must have both
grown in itself and been swelled by the arrival of Kavkaz officers ahead of their units.^71
According to Lt-Col. Yossi Sarig, then head of research at IAF intelligence, in
September or October Israeli sigint intercepted messages between Soviet MiG-21
units in the USSR and Eg ypt about equipment transfers that he interpreted as prepa-
ration for arrival of Soviet squadrons. MI chiefs, however, declined to spread the
report beyond the Air Force, and it was largely overlooked.^72