THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973inch of Sinai.^14 A KGB agent, “Bristol,” arranged the publication in Damascus of “a
history of Sadat’s betrayal.”^15
Subversion efforts went beyond mere words in December 1977: the KGB reziden-
tura (embassy station) in Damascus “registered no objection” when it was informed
of a Syrian–PFLP plan to “physically eliminate” Sadat and Marwan.^16 Whether this
ultimately led to Soviet sponsorship of Sadat’s actual assassination, on the eighth
anniversary of the October War, by such unlikely allies as the Muslim Brotherhood,
remains a major question for research of the post-1973 phase. But Sadat himself
evidently suspected this was afoot: a few weeks earlier, he had expelled the Soviet
ambassador, Vladimir Polyakov, and his staff for “involvement in a plot to destabilize
the country.”
In the unkindest cut of all, Sadat also disclosed that since the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in December 1979, he had been selling his now-surplus stock of Soviet-
made weapons to the United States for supply to the mujahideen, and training the
anti-Soviet fighters. The Afgantsy thus faced the same weapons and knowhow that
their older colleagues had provided to Eg ypt. The USSR was for almost three years
in the anomalous situation of no diplomatic relations with Israel or Eg ypt, until a
“thaw” initiated by Sadat’s successor—the Soviets’ old friend Husny Mubarak—cul-
minated in the Cairo embassy’s restoration in July 1984.^17 It was only in the final days
of December 1991 that Aleksandr Bovin, Brezhnev’s former speechwriter, became
the last Soviet ambassador anywhere to present his credentials—in Jerusalem. His
Soviet diplomatic corps’ gold-braided dress uniform had become so obsolete that an
American reporter wondered, “Did they bring the hotel doorman too?”^18
Bovin later remarked to the authors: “Do you know why Russia is so big? Because
it never gave back anything.” How post-Soviet Russia, especially under Putin, moved
to reclaim its standing as a Middle Eastern power, by backing “traditional allies” such
as Syria and the Palestinians, fostering new ones (like Iran), mending fences with
erstwhile clients like Eg ypt and—not least—by maximizing its nuisance value against
US hegemony was the focus of our journalistic work for years, and merits yet another
book. Suffice it for now to say that the sense of déjà vu is overpowering.