Russia has repeatedly presented itself as fighting “fascism” in order to justify its piecemeal conquest of Ukraine. At the same time, pro-Russian apologists have been making much of the liberation of the Nazi death camps by the Red Army—even as Putin himself has praised the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact. James Kirchick argues that this is part of a larger effort to distort history:

[Praising the Red Army for] the liberation of the death camps, along with hysterical Russian claims of rampant Ukrainian anti-Semitism, cohere into a Kremlin narrative that portrays Russia as a historic protector of the Jews. That narrative is a pernicious lie. . . .

Today, pro-Russian revisionists speak of the Soviets liberating Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps as if they did so out of some sort of deep-seated, philo-Semitic humanism, rather than the real, more tedious reason, which is that the camps were located along the Red Army’s march to Berlin. The Soviet Union that liberated Auschwitz was the same regime that instituted the gulag archipelago; the Red Army that liberated Eastern Europe also committed thousands of rapes and paved the way for over four decades of Soviet occupation, tragic chapters in history that are being written over with simplistic veneration of the Soviet role in defeating Hitler.

One cannot help getting the sense that all these Russian cries about “fascism” . . . are a sort of twisted, Orwellian projection. Because if there’s any regime in Europe today that resembles a “fascist” one, it is Russia. Like the Nazis, Russia has invaded a neighbor based on the principle of ethnic comradeship, is targeting a vulnerable domestic minority (homosexuals) with state-sanctioned bigotry, and officially labels any and all dissenters “national traitors.” As Moscow relives its glorious past, monopolizing the heroism of World War II and slandering its contemporary adversaries as latter-day Nazis, it inches closer and closer toward becoming the sort of fascist regime its forebears once fought against.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.