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Accounts of an upcoming American-Russian leadership meeting have been greatly exaggerated, apparently.

Only a few days after President Trump announced he intended to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Hungarian capital - "in approximately a fortnight" - the summit has been suspended indefinitely.

A preliminary meeting by the both countries' leading diplomats has been cancelled, as well.

"I don't want to have a wasted meeting," President Trump informed the press at the executive mansion on a recent weekday. "I don't want a waste of time, so I will observe what transpires."

• Trump states he did not want a 'wasted meeting' after arrangement for negotiations with Putin postponed
• Letdown in Kyiv as Zelensky departs White House without results

The frequently changing meeting is just the latest twist in Trump's efforts to broker an end to war in the Eastern European nation – a topic of renewed focus for the US president after he orchestrated a truce and hostage release agreement in Gaza.

While making remarks in the North African country last week to commemorate that truce deal, the president addressed Steve Witkoff, with a fresh directive.

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

Nonetheless, the conditions that converged to make a Gaza breakthrough possible 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

According to Witkoff, the crucial element to unlocking a deal was the Israeli government's decision to strike representatives of Hamas in the Gulf state. It was a action that infuriated America's Arab allies but provided Trump bargaining power to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu into making a deal.

The US president benefited from a long record of siding with the Israeli state since his first term, encompassing his decision to relocate the US embassy to the contested city, to alter America's position on the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, in recent times, his support for Israeli defense operations against the Islamic Republic.

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

Combine Trump's connections in politics and business to key Arab players in the area, and he had a wealth of diplomatic muscle to force an agreement.

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, on the other hand, Trump has much less leverage. In recent months, he has vacillated between efforts to pressure the Russian president and then the Ukrainian leader, all with little seeming effect.

Trump has threatened to enact new sanctions on Russian energy exports and to supply the Ukrainian forces with new long-range weapons. But he has also acknowledged that doing so could harm the global economy and further escalate the conflict.

Meanwhile, the president has criticized openly Ukraine's president, halting briefly information exchange with Ukraine and pausing arms shipments to the country - then to back off in the face of concerned European allies who caution a Ukrainian collapse could disrupt the whole area.

The president often boasts about his ability to sit down and hammer out agreements, but his face-to-face meetings with both Putin and Zelensky haven't seemed to move the hostilities any nearer a resolution.

Putin may actually be using Trump's desire for a settlement – and faith in direct negotiations - as a means of influencing him.

During the summer, Russia's leader consented to a high-level meeting in Alaska at the time when it appeared likely that the president would approve on congressional sanctions package backed by GOP senators. That bill was subsequently delayed.

Recently, as news emerged that the US administration was seriously contemplating sending Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Ukraine, the Russian leader called Trump who then promoted the potential meeting in Budapest.

The next day, the president welcomed Zelensky at the White House, but departed without agreements after a allegedly tense meeting.

Trump maintained that he was not being manipulated by the Russian president.

"You know, I've been played all my life by skilled operators, and I came out really well," he remarked.

However the Ukrainian leader subsequently made note of the timeline of developments.

"As soon as the issue of long-range mobility became a less accessible for us – for our nation – Russia quickly became less engaged in diplomacy," he stated.

So, in a short period, Trump has shifted from entertaining the prospect of providing weapons to the Eastern European country to planning a Budapest summit with Putin and confidentially pressuring the Ukrainian president to surrender the entire Donbas region – even territory Russian forces has been failed to capture.

He has ultimately settled on advocating a ceasefire along present frontlines – a proposal the Russian government has rejected.

During his election campaign last year, Trump vowed that he could resolve the conflict in Ukraine in a matter of hours. He has since abandoned that commitment, saying that ending the war is turning out harder than he anticipated.

It has been a rare acknowledgement of the limits of his authority – and the challenge of establishing a framework for peace when both parties desires, or can afford to, cease hostilities.