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Accounts of an impending American-Russian leadership meeting have been overstated, it seems.

Only a few days after Donald Trump announced he intended to meet Russia's leader Putin in Budapest - "in approximately a fortnight" - the high-level talks has been suspended indefinitely.

A initial get-together by the two nations' top diplomats has been cancelled, too.

"I don't want to have a wasted meeting," President Trump told the press at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. "I aim to avoid a pointless effort, so I will observe what happens."

• Donald Trump states he did not want a 'wasted meeting' after arrangement for negotiations with Putin postponed
• Disappointment in Kyiv as President Zelensky departs Washington without results

The on-again, off-again summit is another development in Trump's attempts to broker an conclusion to hostilities in the Eastern European nation – a topic of renewed focus for the US president after he orchestrated a truce and prisoner exchange agreement in Gaza.

While making remarks in Egypt recently to celebrate that truce deal, Trump turned to his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a new request.

"We have to get Russia resolved," he declared.

Nonetheless, the conditions that aligned to make a Middle East success achievable for Witkoff and his team may be difficult to duplicate in a conflict in Ukraine that has been raging for almost four years.

Reduced Influence

Per Witkoff, the key to achieving a agreement was the Israeli government's move to attack representatives of Hamas in Qatar. It was a move that angered America's Arab allies but gave the president bargaining power to compel Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into making a deal.

The US president gained from a history of supporting Israel since his first term, including his choice to relocate the US embassy to the contested city, to change America's position on the legality of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and, more recently, his support for Israeli defense operations against the Islamic Republic.

The American leader, actually, is more popular among Israelis than Netanyahu – a situation that provided him with unique influence over the nation's head.

Combine the president's political and economic ties to key Arab players in the region, and he had a abundant negotiating strength to force an agreement.

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, by contrast, the president has much less influence. Over the past nine months, he has swung between attempts to pressure Putin and then Zelensky, all with minimal visible progress.

Trump has warned to enact new sanctions on Russian energy exports and to provide the Ukrainian forces with new long-range weapons. But he has also acknowledged that such actions could disrupt the world's financial stability and further escalate the war.

At the same time, the US leader has criticized openly Ukraine's president, temporarily cutting off intelligence-sharing with Ukraine and pausing arms shipments to the country - only to then retreat in the face of concerned European allies who caution a Ukrainian collapse could destabilise the entire region.

The president loves to tout his skill to meet and hammer out agreements, but his face-to-face meetings with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders haven't seemed to advance the hostilities any closer to a peaceful end.

The Russian president may in fact be exploiting Trump's desire for a deal – and faith in in-person deal-making - as a method of manipulating him.

During the summer, Russia's leader consented to a summit in Alaska at the time when it seemed probable that Trump would sign off on legislative penalties backed by GOP senators. That legislation was subsequently delayed.

Last week, as reports spread that the White House was seriously contemplating shipping long-range missiles and air defense systems to Kyiv, the president of Russia called the US president who then touted the possible meeting in Budapest.

The following day, the president hosted Zelensky at the executive residence, but departed empty-handed after a allegedly tense meeting.

The US leader maintained that he was not being played by Putin.

"You know, I've been played all my life by skilled operators, and I emerged successfully," he said.

However the president of Ukraine subsequently commented on the timeline of developments.

"Once the matter of long-range mobility became a little further away for us – for our nation – Russia quickly became less engaged in diplomacy," he stated.

Thus, in a matter of days, Trump has bounced from considering the idea of providing weapons to Ukraine to organizing a Budapest summit with Russia's leader and privately pressuring the Ukrainian president to surrender the entire Donbas region – even land Russia has been unable to conquer.

He has ultimately decided on calling for a truce along present frontlines – a proposal the Russian government has rejected.

On the campaign trail previously, Trump vowed that he could end the Ukraine war in a matter of hours. He has subsequently discarded that commitment, saying that concluding the hostilities is proving more difficult than he anticipated.

It has been a uncommon admission of the limits of his authority – and the difficulty of finding a peace plan when both parties wants, or is able to, give up the fight.