An aerial view of the the Dimona reactor. Photo: Courtesy
Posted on 08/23/2007 10:34:41 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Russia confirms Soviet sorties over Dimona in '67
By DAVID HOROVITZ
The chief spokesman of the Russian Air Force, Col. Aleksandr V. Drobyshevsky, has confirmed in writing for the first time that it was Soviet pilots, in the USSR's most-advanced MiG-25 "Foxbat" aircraft, who flew highly-provocative sorties over Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona in May 1967, just prior to the Six Day War.
Gideon Remez and Isabello Ginor, who co-wrote the recent book Foxbats over Dimona, which asserts that the Soviet Union deliberately engineered the war to create the conditions in which Israel's nuclear program could be destroyed, on Thursday described this "extraordinary disclosure" as "official confirmation of the book's exhibit A and the source of its title."
Published in June by Yale University Press, the Israeli duo's book asserted that the Soviets flew sorties over Dimona in the still-experimental and top-secret Foxbats both to bolster a deliberate Soviet effort to encourage Israel to launch a war, and to ensure that the nuclear target could be effectively destroyed once Israel, branded an aggressor for its preemption, came under a planned joint Arab-Soviet counterattack.
Soviet nuclear-missile submarines were said to have been poised off Israel's shore, ready to strike back in case Israel already had a nuclear device and sought to use it. The Soviets were also said to have geared up for a naval landing on Israel's beaches.
The book, hailed by experts such as the former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt Daniel Kurtzer for marshalling a "compelling argument," nonetheless featured what the authors acknowledged was a dearth of incontrovertible documentation that would back up central aspects of their thesis. They noted at the time that it was "entirely possible that few corresponding documents ever existed," that key documents may have been destroyed, and that "the accounts of numerous Soviet participants refer to orders that were transmitted only orally down the chain of command."
However, a delighted Remez and Ginor told the The Jerusalem Post that official confirmation of the Soviet Foxbat sorties had now been published by Drobyshevsky in an article posted on the official Web site of the Russian Defense Ministry. The "extraordinary disclosure of a hitherto secret operation," they noted, "apparently was included inadvertently - in a statement that was published in a completely different context": to mark the anniversary of the test pilots' school from which one of the pilots who participated in the 1967 flights graduated.
The relevant section of Drobyshevsky's article states (in translation): "In 1967, the military valor and high combat training of Col. Bezhevets, A.S. (now a Hero of the Soviet Union, an honorary test pilot of the USSR, [and] retired Air Force major-general), were demonstrated while carrying out combat operation in Egypt, [and] enabled [him] to perform unique reconnaissance flights over the territory of Israel in a MiG-25RB aircraft."
Remez and Ginor said this high-level admission of the Soviet sorties, which was first posted on the ministry's Web site last October, "comes as close to an official document as one can hope for in the foreseeable future, given the prevailing circumstances in Russia."
They noted that it corroborates the personal testimony of Bezhevets's senior colleague, Lt.-Gen. Aleksandr I. Vybornov, who is quoted in the book as having described the missions on several occasions.
The book's findings were first published by the Post on May 16, under the heading "Soviets engineered Six Day War 'to destroy Israel's nuclear program.'"
Remez and Ginor told the Post that this article "was widely reproduced" and "aroused intensive discussion" in the FSU. Several respected news media outlets, notably the Russian dailyKomsomolskaya Pravda, they said, "contacted some of the veterans who were among the main sources for the book, and they reiterated their accounts."
Among such veterans confirming their stories was Gen. Vasily Reshetnikov, the commander of the Soviet strategic bombers, said to have been given maps for the planned strike at Dimona.
The "conventional view" of the events leading up to the 1967 war, Remez noted when the book came out, "is that the Soviet Union triggered the conflict via disinformation on Israeli troop movements, but that it didn't intend for a full-scale war to break out and that it then did its best to defuse the war in cooperation with the United States." The book, he said, "totally contradicts everything that has been accepted."
Having received information about Israel's progress toward nuclear arms, the book asserts, the Soviets aimed to draw Israel into a confrontation in which their counterstrike would include a joint Egyptian-Soviet bombing of the reactor at Dimona.
The Soviets' intended central intervention in the war was thwarted, however, by the overwhelming nature of the initial Israeli success, the authors write, as Israel's preemption, far from weakening its international legitimacy and exposing it to devastating counterattack, proved decisive in determining the conflict. Because the Soviet Union's plan thus proved unworkable, the authors go on, its role in stoking the crisis, and its plans to subsequently remake the Middle East to its advantage, have remained overlooked, undervalued or simply unknown to historians assessing the war over the past 40 years.
The Israeli authors' thesis, they told the Post this week, had now won over Komsomolskaya Pravda's Col. Viktor Baranets, a noted military correspondent and former General Staff officer. They quoted him as having written recently that "the time has apparently come to set the record straight. So far, the facts have often been replaced by inventions. No one can dispute the obvious: the USSR 'orchestrated' that war... The USSR was prepared for an invasion of Israel. The confessions of our own officers prove this."
The Russian media also recently contacted Bezhevets himself, the authors said, but even though he has now been officially praised by his own Defense Ministry for making the Foxbat flights over Israel, he denied doing so. According to Remez and Ginor, this "indicates that Drobyshevsky's [Defense Ministry] statement relied not on the pilot's testimony but rather on the air force's own documentation." This, in turn, they said, "illustrates the point... that full and direct documentation of the Soviet role in 1967 is still being suppressed."
Remez, a longtime prominent Israel Radio journalist, fought in the Six Day War as a paratrooper. Ginor was born in the Ukraine, came to Israel in 1967 and is a noted analyst of Soviet and post-Soviet affairs.
An aerial view of the the Dimona reactor. Photo: Courtesy
5 years after the Cuban missile crisis and the Soviets were still trying to make trouble.
When was the attack on the US elint ship ?
Don’t doubt it one bit. Information has come out that when Israel took the fight to Syria and got within 40 miles of damascus, Russia flew a bunch of bombers and fighters to Armenia, and stared painting Syrian and Egyptian military markings on the planes. They were going to attack Israel and make it look like it was Epypt and Syria pilots and planes. Russia also had a naval presence in the med and were readying to attack Haifa with an amphibous landing. Anything to get Israel to stop kicking Syrian and Egyptian ass.
During the 6 day war-June of 67.
That’s the annual Parade of the Russian army.
Interesting read... Thank you.
I guess that someone didn't think that they were too contaminated.
What the Soviets didn’t count on was the Egyptians inability to find their posteriors with both hands,,
Come get some. But, remember this: Israel is the apple of God’s eye.
Ezekiel 38
1 Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh,[a] Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 and say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. 4 I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. 5 Persia, Ethiopia,[b] and Libya[c] are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6 Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you.
7 “Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companies that are gathered about you; and be a guard for them. 8 After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely. 9 You will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many peoples with you.”
10 ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “On that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind, and you will make an evil plan: 11 You will say, ‘I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates’— 12 to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited, and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell in the midst of the land. 13 Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, ‘Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?’”’
14 “Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “On that day when My people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it? 15 Then you will come from your place out of the far north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army. 16 You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes.” 17 Thus says the Lord GOD: “Are you he of whom I have spoken in former days by My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years in those days that I would bring you against them?
18 “And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the land of Israel,” says the Lord GOD, “that My fury will show in My face. 19 For in My jealousy and in the fire of My wrath I have spoken: ‘Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel, 20 so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that creep on the earth, and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at My presence. The mountains shall be thrown down, the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.’ 21 I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all My mountains,” says the Lord GOD. “Every man’s sword will be against his brother. 22 And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed; I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 23 Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.”’
“with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords.”
Is Russia planning to attack on horseback? Where are the jets?
I think we have to be a bit careful when it comes to trying to fit our modern-day weapons into Bible prophecies. I believe that prophecy was fulfilled long ago, in the Book of Esther.
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
----------------------------
The book of Esther took place in Babylon, well after the exile of the Jews from their homes in Israel. There are no battles against Israel that take place in its pages, much less ones in which God destroys all of Israel's enemies. I think perhaps you need to go read that wonderful book again.
And, I don't know of any credible Bible scholar who believes that Ezekiel 38 has already occurred.
I guess that someone didn't think that they were too contaminated.
The contamination would be on the outside of the truck bodies (and in the cabs if the windows were open.) Radioactive dust sticks to paint and rusty spots on the outside of the vehicle and is nearly impossible to get off. As long as the engines weren't running at the time and the hoods weren't open, there is a chance that the engines could be cleaned up.
But for each one, somewhere there's a mechanic that has that "special glow" from the dose he got pulling that engine. Guess they figured it was worth it.
It was all of ten years later, when Viktor Belenko defected with a Foxbat, before our side found out that as soon as that Mach 3 MiG-25 touched down in Egypt, both its engines went to the junkpile. (This happened every time they flew that fast.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.