Donald Trump admitted Sunday that “tough” questions over Ukrainian territory remain unresolved after a two-hour Mar-a-Lago meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—despite claiming a peace deal is “95% done” and “closer than ever.”

Translation: it’s nowhere close.

WHAT’S GOING ON: Trump met with Zelenskyy in Florida just hours after a lengthy phone call with Vladimir Putin. The meeting’s optics tell you everything: Zelenskyy got a “businesslike handshake” and no airport greeting from US officials.

Compare that to the red carpet reception Trump gave Putin at their August Alaska summit, complete with applause. The message couldn’t be clearer about whose side this administration is on.

THE DETAILS: Trump expressed “sympathy” with Russia not wanting a ceasefire. Let that sink in. “You have to understand the other side,” he said—the “other side” being the country that just launched 500+ drones and missiles at Kyiv in a 12-hour attack that killed civilians and left half a million without power.

Trump declined to condemn the strikes, instead offering false equivalence: “I believe Ukraine has made some very strong attacks also.”

BUT BUT BUT: Russia isn’t budging on anything. According to Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov, Putin told Trump that a ceasefire proposed by Ukraine and Europe would only “prolong the fighting”—meaning Russia wants total capitulation, not peace.

Putin is demanding territory his forces haven’t even been able to capture. The original US “peace plan” from November literally demanded Ukraine’s surrender.

OF COURSE: Putin called Trump right before the Zelenskyy meeting—a move former Ukrainian diplomat Maria Drutska called an attempt to “sabotage things.” This playbook worked before: at their October White House meeting, Trump walked back Tomahawk missile deliveries to Ukraine after a similar call to Moscow.

Russia announced it had seized five more Ukrainian settlements just before the Florida talks, sending a clear message about who’s really winning here.

BOTTOM LINE: “The fundamental flaw in the current diplomatic push is the absence of the aggressor at the negotiating table,” said Yuriy Boyechko of the charity Hope for Ukraine.

“As long as Russia is actively launching its heaviest attacks in months, it is signalling that it has no intention of honouring a deal it did not sign.” Trump isn’t brokering peace—he’s providing Putin diplomatic cover while civilians die.