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

THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973

Whether or not he said so to Heikal, Brezhnev may have insisted on secrecy for
domestic as well as external considerations: deployment to Eg ypt was highly taxing
for the USSR’s conventional capability, which was already stretched from
Czechoslovakia to the Chinese frontier. To form the 18th Division, experienced
cadres had to be withdrawn from units defending the Soviet heartland, including
Moscow and Leningrad—exactly what regional leaders and commanders had
resented in 1967.^13 A few days after their initial tour of Eg ypt—that is, a few days into
January 1970—the Air Defense officers were joined by Air Force and Navy bigwigs
in a meeting at Grechko’s office. Air Force Commander Marshal A.N. Yefimov
requested a larger number of aircraft to be sent to Eg ypt. Grechko cut him short,
expressing dissatisfaction with the report just presented, and told him that results
must be achieved through capability rather than numbers: “think not only of yourself
but of our country and its own defense.”^14
The secrecy measures that were applied to the vanguard of Kavkaz were main-
tained when the main units were shipped to Eg ypt. Even after the Soviet presence
became common knowledge, it was camouflaged both en route and on the ground.
The personnel “merely had to pass a medical examination to confirm that they were
fit for service ‘in a country with a hot climate,’ and it was not until the very last min-
ute that they learned where they were going.”^15 They were stripped of Soviet uniforms
and identification papers before leaving the USSR, and their hardware was painted
with Eg yptian markings; their operations were never officially acknowledged. Lt Ivan
Mishchenko, a “spetsnaz radio-intelligence technical officer,” relates that when he was
posted to Eg ypt in May 1971, this pretense was still maintained:

At Nikolaev they dressed us in mufti, issued us smart foreign-tailored suits (from Socialist-

bloc countries). The enlisted men got berets and the officers, hats. We turned in all our

personal effects and military documents and boarded the cruise liner Admiral Nakhimov

as tourists. My surveillance station was masked as an ambulance.^16

One of the interpreters, however, remarked that the standard-issue civvies were so
uniform and distinctive that all American intelligence had to do was to count the
suits and hats.^17 So possibly in order to vary this routine, in time other guises were
introduced. Lt Vladimir Presnukhin, whose SAM unit was pulled from the Chinese
frontier in October 1970, relates that in Nikolaev they were kitted out as a sports
team en route to a training camp; thirty years later, he still kept a jacket with football-
shaped buttons.
On duty in Eg ypt, the Soviet regulars—like the advisers who preceded them—wore
tan Eg yptian fatigues with no insignia. Officers could be distinguished only by tunics
worn outside their trousers, while enlisted men had shirts tucked in.^18 These uniforms’
quality and condition prompted a visiting general to comment, “I have never seen such
a motley crew since ’45, when we liberated POW camps in Germany.” He urged officers
to maintain their dignity by making their own repairs, for which he promised a ship-