THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973C. “But the Russians are leaving!” “Well, we have arrived.”
“Radio-technical” expert “Smirnov” relates that after about ten days of idling at head-
quarters in Cairo, which began to cause some drinking problems, “our superior sud-
denly appeared. ... ‘The Arabs have asked us to help them. We have decided to send
you out on assignments.’” “Smirnov” and a colleague were sent to Alexandria. At the
Hyde Park Hotel where the Soviets were routinely quartered, they noticed that a large
portrait of Lenin was still on display. The Eg yptian floor manager was, however,
surprised to see them, because—he said—“the Russians are leaving.” But after report-
ing their arrival and receiving instructions, he became even more cordial, “addressing
us as ... ‘comrades-in-arms.’ ... This was repeated the next day, when we reported to
regimental headquarters ... ‘But the Russians are leaving!’ ‘Well, we have arrived.’”
The commanding officer, “without any comment on the supreme leadership’s decision
to banish all the Soviets to the USSR, declared that he was delighted to see Soviet
specialists in his unit again.”^33
This conforms with Kapitanets’s account that in August 1972 he “received an order
to come to Alexandria for a meeting with the new commander of the Eg yptian Navy.
... The admiral stated [that] relations between our fleets remained without any
change,” despite the discontinuation of the Soviet naval-aviation base in Eg ypt.^34 The
latter, along with the recall of the MiG-25s, was indeed a significant change. But
either the introduction of longer-range surveillance aircraft, reliance on other bases
(now in Libya too, in addition to Algeria and Syria), or improvement of satellite
reconnaissance appear to have made this price acceptable, if not desirable. There is no
evidence that Sixth Fleet vessels reported their Soviet shadowing diminished.
Returning to Cairo later in August, “Smirnov” was told that repatriation flights to
Russia had ended “as all the nonessentials had already been sent home.” He was reas-
signed to a radar plant, where his Eg yptian superior “was not surprised at our appear-
ance.” Maj. Baranov explained that “after the first feverish days of evacuation had
passed, the command decided to delay whomever they could ... so as not to transport
people unnecessarily back and forth.” They were henceforth taken to work in a civil-
ian bus. “Morale was not bad ... and billeting was much improved, as many apart-
ments had been vacated.”^35
In Eg yptian ground units, the Soviet advisers’ presence was likewise renewed—to
the extent that it was interrupted at all. Another captured Eg yptian document, which
was composed about ten months after the “marching orders” issued to the advisers of
the 112th Brigade, lists the same number and ranks of Soviet advisers, with an
“English” interpreter, as still serving with another infantry brigade, the 2nd. Two of
these advisers had arrived before the supposed expulsion (one as early as January 1971
and one in April 1972); they were still on duty in May 1973. The other two advisers
and the interpreter are listed as having “arrived in the brigade” in September–October
- One of the latter two is the “armored forces adviser” Vladimir Alekseyevich