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Reports of an upcoming American-Russian presidential summit have been overstated, apparently.

Just days after Donald Trump announced he intended to confer with Russia's leader Vladimir Putin in the Hungarian capital - "in approximately a fortnight" - the high-level talks has been suspended indefinitely.

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

"I don't want to have a fruitless discussion," President Trump informed the press at the executive mansion on Tuesday afternoon. "I aim to avoid a pointless effort, so I will observe what happens."

• Trump states he wished to avoid a 'wasted meeting' after plan for negotiations with Putin postponed
• Disappointment in Ukraine's capital as Zelensky leaves Washington without results

The on-again, off-again meeting is another twist in the president's attempts to mediate an conclusion to hostilities in Ukraine – a topic of renewed focus for the American leader after he orchestrated a truce and hostage release agreement in the Palestinian territory.

During a speech in Egypt last week to commemorate that truce deal, Trump turned to his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a fresh directive.

"It is essential to get Russia done," he declared.

Nonetheless, the circumstances that converged to make a Gaza breakthrough possible for the negotiation team may be challenging to replicate in a Ukraine war that has been raging for nearing several years.

Reduced Influence

According to Witkoff, the key to achieving a deal was Israel's move to strike Hamas negotiators in Qatar. It was a action that angered America's Arab allies but provided Trump leverage to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into making a deal.

Trump benefited from a history of siding with the Israeli state dating back to his first term, including his choice to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem, to alter America's position on the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, more recently, his support for Israeli defense operations against Iran.

The US president, actually, is better regarded among the Israeli public than their prime minister – a situation that provided him with special sway over the nation's head.

Add in Trump's connections in politics and business to key Arab players in the region, and he had a wealth of negotiating strength to force an agreement.

In the Ukraine war, by contrast, the president has significantly reduced leverage. In recent months, he has vacillated between efforts to strong-arm the Russian president and then the Ukrainian leader, all with minimal visible progress.

Trump has threatened to impose new sanctions on Russia's oil and gas sales and to provide Ukraine with new long-range weapons. But he has also acknowledged that such actions could disrupt the global economy and intensify the conflict.

At the same time, the US leader has publicly berated Ukraine's president, halting briefly intelligence-sharing with the country and pausing weapon deliveries to the country - only to then back off in the wake of concerned European allies who caution a Ukrainian collapse could destabilise the whole area.

The president often boasts about his ability to sit down and hammer out agreements, but his face-to-face meetings with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders have not appeared to advance the war any closer to a peaceful end.

Putin may in fact be using Trump's desire for a deal – and belief in direct negotiations - as a means of influencing him.

In July, Russia's leader consented to a high-level meeting in Alaska at the time when it appeared likely that the president would sign off on congressional sanctions package backed by Senate Republicans. That legislation was afterwards put on hold.

Recently, as news emerged that the White House was considering seriously sending long-range missiles and air defense systems to Ukraine, the Russian leader called Trump who then promoted the potential meeting in Hungary.

The next day, the president welcomed Ukraine's leader at the White House, but left empty-handed after a allegedly strained discussion.

Trump insisted that he was not being played by Putin.

"You know, I have been manipulated all my life by the best of them, and I emerged successfully," he said.

But the Ukrainian leader later made note of the sequence of events.

"Once the issue of long-range mobility became a less accessible for us – for our nation – the Russian side quickly became less interested in negotiations," he said.

So, in a matter of days, Trump has shifted from entertaining the prospect of providing weapons to Ukraine to planning a Budapest summit with Putin and privately urging the Ukrainian president to surrender all of Donbas – even territory Russia has been failed to capture.

He has ultimately settled on advocating a ceasefire along current battle lines – a proposal the Russian government has refused to accept.

During his election campaign previously, the candidate promised that he could end the conflict in Ukraine in a matter of hours. He has since abandoned that pledge, admitting that concluding the war is proving more difficult than he expected.

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