IN THE THICK OF THE YOM KIPPUR WARhe served in it.^50 One can only speculate whether it was these zenitchiki (anti-aircraft
operators), Soviet advisers guiding Eg yptian crews, or newly resourceful Eg yptians on
their own who on 18 October put their missiles to an extraordinary improvised use.
When Israeli mechanized infantry attacked two missile bases on the west bank of the
Bitter Lake, “the defenders fired SAM-2s directly at us. One exploded 10 meters behind
the company commander’s APC, but no one was injured.”^51
Whether other SAM models were included in Bryantsev’s outfit is unclear, but
seems likely. Despite the retrospective stress on the air defense belt that was com-
posed mainly of SAM-2 and -3s and remained west of the canal, the Israelis attributed
the bulk of their aircraft losses to newer, mobile SAM-6s. Ambassador Dinitz told
Kissinger two days into the war “we suffered very heavy casualties ... from the SAM-6s
which were very effective against our planes.” Kissinger took this up with US Chief
of Naval Operations Moorer, who admitted “yes, for two reasons. They’re mobile and
[the Israelis] can’t find the launchers. Also, we have never been able to get sufficient
information about them to develop any good countermeasures.”^52 Some of them
crossed the canal, extending the danger zone for Israeli aircraft. A SAM-6 radar sys-
tem was destroyed by Israeli tank fire near the IDF’s counter-crossing point, to the
dismay of the IAF, which wanted to study it.^53 The SAM-6 had previously been oper-
ated in Eg ypt only by Soviet crews and was supplied to Eg yptian forces only after
Ahmed Ismail’s visit to Moscow in March 1973.^54 It therefore seems likely that at least
Soviet advisers, if not regular crews, were involved.
In Syria, they certainly were, from the very outbreak of war. Politruk Gumar
Sagdutinov from Kazan, then stationed near Lvov on the Polish border, was sum-
moned urgently “in early October 1973” and attached, with ten of his comrades, to
a brigade of Kub (SAM-6) missiles, which—complete with Strela and Shilka
defenses—was dispatched by freighter (the Ho Chi Minh) with a warship escort to
Syria. When they arrived in Latakiya, “there were already burnt and sunken ships in
the harbor”—the aftermath of an Israeli naval attack on the first night of the war.
After the Soviet freighter Ilya Mechnikov was sunk in Tartus on 11 October, the
Soviet news agency TASS issued a warning that the USSR could not remain indifferent
to Israeli action that caused Soviet casualties in Syria or Eg ypt (thereby confirming the
presence of military personnel in both), and if it continued this would lead to severe
consequences for Israel. Dayan, always the most apprehensive among Israeli leaders
about Soviet intervention, accused the IAF of disobeying instructions not to bomb
Latakiya “if Russians were there,” to which IDF Chief of Staff Elazar responded that
there was no bombing ; the ship was hit in an exchange between Syrian missile boats
berthed next to it and Israeli ones.^55
Sagdutinov’s SAM-6s took up positions in olive groves around Latakiya, but
only the Shilkas got to fire at suspected Israeli helicopters. After a week, the outfit
moved to Damascus, where it stayed for fourteen months. “Soviet military advisers
openly told” the interpreter Vasiliev, “who was in Damascus at the time,” that