With the exception of Vasiliev, I'm not too high on any Soviet defenseman of the early/mid-1970s; not even Vladimir Lutchenko, who has those numerous all-star selections in the Soviet league.
In many games, they indeed look very poor in their own zone; can't get the puck out even if their life depended on it, lots of giveaways etc. And there were only a couple of good defensive forwards (Petrov and Shadrin) IMO. Around 1978, though, the whole team seemed to get a lot better defensively. I'm not sure if the dmen got that much better per se, but rather their defensive play as a whole improved. The team rarely got beaten post-1978, and VERY rarely more than 2-3 goals were scored on them, despite some mediocre goalies like Mylnikov. Most notable exception was the 1987 Canada Cup, of course, but hey, Gretzky and Lemieux playing on the same line much of the time...
Yes, Czechoslovakia often seemed to play their best hockey against USSR. I don't think it's a coinsidence that they started winning those games more consistently after the happenings of 1968.