THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973Nikiforov’s own contract was to expire only on 18 August, but the Eg yptians—
despite the supposed expulsion—actually wanted to extend it for another two
months. When Nikiforov reported this by telephone to Moscow, he was told that
“under the conditions of withdrawal” that Sadat had ordered this would not be pos-
sible. As his group had arrived without visas, they could not leave by civilian airliner,
and had to join the missilemen on the Pobeda. Up to the last moment, the advisers’
“curator” Col. Bardisi and generals from the Eg yptian General Staff tried to persuade
Nikiforov not to leave, but he told them Moscow was adamant. “The ship was over-
loaded; the soldiers slept crowded on deck. Some were diagnosed with dysentery and
quarantined” en route to Sevastopol.^19
Shazly, Eg yptian chief of staff, stated in 1990 that it was only “by the end of 1972”
that “we were able to replace the Soviet military specialists on fifteen SAM missile
[divizyons].” But “most of the Soviet advisers [again, loosely used for the SAM opera-
tors] didn’t leave till October 1972.”^20 Two former servicemen with air defense units
in the canal zone give their departure dates as 2 August and 12 September.^21 The
handover continued at least until March 1973, when “every one [of the Soviets] who
had a suitable military specialty was sent ‘into the field’ to break in [Eg yptian] air
defense men, who arrived after having finished their training in the [Soviet] Union.”^22
Like the pilots, the Soviet missilemen left without much of their hardware.
Vsevolod Veligosha, a cook and paramedic, was posted with his SAM detachment in
Alexandria. He does not give the precise date when, “after Nasser’s death ... we were
asked to leave,” but relates that the Soviet personnel “left all their equipment to Arabs
whom we had urgently taught; every one of us prepared a replacement for himself.”^23
Lt Luk’yanov’s unit was flown back to Lvov in An-22s in October or November 1972,
after handing over their gear to Eg yptians. Although they had heard of Sadat’s deci-
sion, they sensed no change in the attitude of the locals and continued to visit Mersa
Matruh cafes together until their departure.^24 Maj. Yury Makarenko had arrived with
his “spetsnaz radio-technical” outfit in early May 1972 to replace a Lt-Col. A. Mavrin
and his men, but Mavrin left only in August and Makarenko himself on 27 October.
He was transferred to Iraq to complete his two-year contract in a similar capacity.^25
C. The internatsionalisty’s homecoming : quarantined and silenced
An official Russian history also describes the bulk of personnel who returned from
Eg ypt to the USSR in July–August 1972 as “soldiers”—that is, regulars—who were
“sent out by planes ... and cruise liners to Sevastopol and Odessa.”^26 What befell them
also bespeaks a deliberate effort to obscure both their deployment itself and how it
ended, from the Soviet public as well as Western eyes:
The soldiers and officers expected a festive reception. ... But ... the ports were surrounded
by a chain of armed men in civilian clothes. It was forbidden to make telephone calls, to go
to the toilet without an escort, or to share any impression from the foreign tour of duty