THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973the more so if, as Quandt reported in 1976 from Israeli sources, some of the equip-
ment captured during the war came from Warsaw Pact stocks in Eastern Europe,
which must have been readied in advance.^29
C. Advisers and spetsnaz in action across the canal
The influx of Soviet personnel continued on the morrow of the war’s outbreak: the
attaché Ivliev has attested that a dozen senior officers arrived in Cairo, and he led five
of them across the canal on the same day, in order to tour the battlefield as the Eg yptian
forces advanced.^30 One of these officers was apparently Robert Bykov, a GRU operative
and missile expert with special-operations experience worldwide, who is also described
as “a veteran of the 1967–19 76 Eg yptian campaign.” Bykov, who retired as a colonel of
the General Staff, told a Russian television interviewer in 2003 how in the Yom Kippur
War he was tasked to oversee the use of the Malyutka in its first massive combat test. As
Bykov narrated—probably with a touch of dramatization: “we took a poorly trained
peasant ... gave him 10 of these Malyutkas and left. The Israeli tanks could be heard
from far away. Later ... we arrived there and saw the peasant literally clapping his hands
... [he] showed us six destroyed Israeli tanks in the distance.”^31
Chief of Staff Shazly lists only fifty Saggers among the weapons whose supply was
agreed upon with Lashchenko in February 1973 and finalized by Defense Minister
Ismail in Moscow the next month.^32 But either this was just one of several shipments,
or its quantity was much greater. The Soviets may have somewhat exaggerated the
Malyutka’s success when they credited it for bagging 800 Israeli tanks, but it did take a
lethal toll—as well as starting a controversy within the IDF over its relative importance
and the Israeli response.^33
“Egyptian ambushes destroyed entire [tank] companies” using, besides the
Malyutkas, which were ineffective after dark, RPG-7s with night-vision sights at very
close range, and even mines laid by hand in front of the tanks. The forward Israeli
division lost two-thirds of its tanks in the first day of fighting, mainly to infantry
before major Eg yptian tank forces were introduced.^34 The missiles flew so thick that
even when they missed, Israeli tank turrets got enmeshed in the guide wires.^35 Still,
the first mention of Saggers in an Israel intelligence report was almost a day into the
fighting, and then too as an expected threat rather than an already observed reality;
it took MI almost twenty-four hours to conclude that the initial Eg yptian crossing
was mainly by infantry rather than armor.^36
Meanwhile, Marwan’s belated warning had an extra, probably unpredicted
effect when the hastily mobilized IDF armored formations, believing that they
would face a tank force, gave their own tanks first priority for transport to the
front. They arrived, and were thrown into combat, without artillery cover and
infantry support against the Eg yptian soldiers, who quickly dug in according to
the doctrine that Zakharov had inculcated. Gen. Sharon also noted that the Israeli