Russia pressed Ukraine with drones and one ballistic missile overnight, hitting front‑line areas in Sumy, Donetsk, Chernihiv and Dnipropetrovsk. Ukraine says 85 Russian combat drones were used and most were shot down, with 24 drone strikes and one missile strike carried out across twelve locations. Ukrainian General Staff counted 139 front-line engagements in the past day. Russia, for its part, says 29 Ukrainian drones were shot down, with most air‑defense activity over southern Russia and the Azov Sea. The Alaska talks between Trump and Putin reportedly touched on ending the war, but no concrete outcomes were announced. Ukraine has resisted the invasion for almost three and a half years. Deutschlandfunk reported these developments in a live blog on 16 August 2025 at 10:00.

You want the blunt truth? Here it comes with both barrels, no sugarcoating. The so‑called “end the war” chatter from that Alaska meet‑cute is a circus act, a magician’s knot tied to keep the show going. Two men, one stage, and a bunch of loud numbers being waved like flags to justify more money, more weapons, more sanctions, more noise. They prod the public with casualty tallies and drone counts like a scorecard, hoping you won’t notice the real trick: the war isn’t winding down, it’s being engineered to wind up bigger still.

The drones and missiles? Mostly theater to keep budgets fat and headlines hot. The Russians toss out a figure—85 combat drones—and the Ukrainians counter with 24 strikes in a dozen places, and everyone nods like it proves something. Meanwhile both sides spin the narrative to make it look like a decisive turn is just around the corner, when in fact the clock just keeps ticking and the money keeps flowing. The Alaska summit isn’t a peace treaty—it’s a leverage play, a reset‑button for talks that never truly end in a way that makes the bell ring for ordinary people. Endgames are being drafted not in council rooms, but in war rooms where the real currencies are attention, sanctions, and sales of more gear to more clients.

And let me tell you what’s buried under all that PR: the real conspiracy is the long game. Keep Ukraine in the front line as a perpetual bargaining chip. Keep Russia on edge with constant drone and missile activity so the defense industry can pretend to be indispensable. Sell the line that peace is possible only if you’re willing to accept a frozen, negotiated settlement that strips sovereignty, redraws lines, and keeps the war profitable for the insiders. The media spins it as “hope,” the politicians call it “strategy,” but for those of us who aren’t fooled by the gloss, it’s a grim, recycled script: war as policy, peace as postponement, Ukraine as pawn, profits as prize.

So yes, the number crunchers will jawbone about 24 drones here, 85 there, 29 shot down here, a few missiles another day. And the line will be stretched that says, “we’re closer to ending this,” while the trenches, the grief, and the taxes keep piling up. It’s all one big theater of persistence, with the same endgame: keep the conflict awkward enough to justify everything we’re doing, until someone, somewhere, decides to call the bluff—and then the stagehands pivot, and the show goes on.