According to a report from Reuters on Thursday, Donald Trump told reporters in Florida that he was getting all set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The remarks came just before a meeting of Republican governors at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Although Trump offered no timeline, he told the media “He wants to meet, and we are setting it up. President Putin wants to meet. He has said that even publicly and we have to get [the Russia-Ukraine] war over with. That’s a bloody mess.”

Almost immediately, however, a statement was made out of the Kremlin by Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov, indicating that no such contact has taken place.

From Russian media outlet Interfax:

“No, there were no requests. But, on the other hand, for obvious reasons, it would probably be more expedient to wait until the new US president takes office. If, after taking office, the political will to resume contacts at the highest level remains, then, of course, President Putin will only welcome this. He has repeatedly spoken about his readiness for dialogue and the need for this dialogue.” (translated from Russian)

The statement was in response to Russian reporters’ direct questions about whether Trump’s team had actually reached out.

Donald Trump has for some time believed that he could say anything he wanted about the state of his relationship with Putin. He remains blissfully unaware, it seems, of even the existence of a news media outside of the United States.

Over and over, however, he has been made to look foolish by international media outlets. Most recently, a Danish media outlet uncovered the fact that all of the “MAGA supporters” that Trump’s son Donald Junior found in Greenland were actually homeless people bribed with a hot meal to wear the trademark red caps on video.

But far more often, it is Russian media, especially state television giant RT, that reports news on Trump’s antics from a more global perspective.

Margarita Simonyan, who heads up RT, was candid about Russia’s real view of Trump in December, with the Daily Beast‘s Julia Davis reporting that:

The head of RT is convinced that a personal meeting between Trump and Putin will totally reverse the course taken by the Biden administration, including the sanctions that banned her propaganda network from American airwaves. Speaking on the program The Right To Know, Simonyan predicted that the incoming Trump administration would attempt to establish good relations with Russia and lift multiple sanctions.

In fact, Simonyan got downright specific about Trump’s Cabinet picks so far, saying that Russian propagandists and government officials are quite pleased with the choices that Trump has been making:

“These people who are being announced as potential members of his team certainly bring us lots of joy. Most of these people are constant guests of RT’s broadcasts. Until RT was shut down, they were our constant guests. For example, Tulsi Gabbard, who keeps being hounded about this right now, ‘Ah, you love RT, you constantly shared their clips, you constantly went there.’ Well, she did come to us all the time, it’s true. It’s not something you can conceal—and she is not the only one.”

But Putin himself is the final authority on everything that’s aired on Russian state television.

That’s why it was such a shock, immediately after Trump’s November victory, when Russian state TV publicly aired the uncensored nude photos taken decades ago of Melania Trump, the incoming First Lady. It was almost like a personal reminder to Trump himself that Putin ultimately pulls his strings when it comes to international relations.

Trump, after all, has no such kompromat on Putin — absolutely no leverage.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, Trump is forced to resort to lying to the press and telling them that he’s got peace talks lined up with the Russian premier. Otherwise he looks weak and ineffectual.

What else can he say, though? He campaigned over and over again on the idea that the Russia-Ukraine war would never have taken place if he’d still been in office. Now we see reports from Russian state TV (again, signed off on by Putin) that say any peace deal would have to be centered on “Ukraine’s unconditional capitulation.”

More importantly, Russia is now using Trump’s posturing on Greenland and Panama as justification for their own expansion plans with the takeover of Ukraine.

With Trump caught lying again about being in some position of authority with Vladimir Putin, it just creates another opportunity for Putin to humiliate him all over again.