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Accounts of an impending US-Russia presidential summit have been overstated, apparently.

Only a few days after President Trump said he planned to confer with Russian President Putin in the Hungarian capital - "in approximately a fortnight" - the high-level talks has been put off without a new date.

A preliminary get-together by the both countries' top diplomats has been cancelled, too.

"I prefer not to have a fruitless discussion," President Trump told the press at the executive mansion on a recent weekday. "I don't want a waste of time, so I will observe what happens."

• Trump states he did not want a 'wasted meeting' after arrangement for negotiations with Putin postponed
• Letdown in Ukraine's capital as Zelensky leaves Washington without results

The frequently changing meeting is another development in the president's efforts to broker an end to hostilities in the Eastern European nation – a subject of renewed focus for the American leader after he arranged a truce and prisoner exchange agreement in Gaza.

During a speech in the North African country last week to celebrate that truce deal, the president turned to Steve Witkoff, with a fresh directive.

"It is essential to get the Russian situation resolved," he declared.

However, the conditions that converged to make a Middle East success possible for the negotiation team may be challenging to duplicate in a conflict in Ukraine that has been raging for nearing four years.

Less Leverage

According to Witkoff, the key to achieving a deal was Israel's move to strike representatives of Hamas in the Gulf state. It was a move that infuriated America's Arab allies but gave Trump bargaining power to pressure Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu into making a deal.

The US president gained from a history of siding with the Israeli state dating back to his first term, encompassing his choice to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem, to alter America's position on the lawfulness of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, more recently, his backing for Israeli defense operations against Iran.

The American leader, actually, is more popular among the Israeli public than Netanyahu – a position that provided him with unique influence over the Israeli leader.

Add in Trump's political and economic ties to key Arab players in the area, and he had a abundant diplomatic muscle to force an agreement.

In the Ukraine war, on the other hand, Trump has much less leverage. Over the past nine months, he has vacillated between efforts to strong-arm the Russian president and then Zelensky, all with minimal visible progress.

The US leader has threatened to impose additional penalties on Russian energy exports and to provide the Ukrainian forces with advanced missile systems. But he has also recognised that doing so could harm the global economy and further escalate the conflict.

At the same time, the president has criticized openly Zelensky, halting briefly intelligence-sharing with the country and suspending arms shipments to the country - only to then retreat in the wake of worried European partners who caution a Ukrainian collapse could disrupt the whole area.

The president often boasts about his skill to meet and negotiate agreements, but his face-to-face meetings with both Putin and Zelensky have not appeared to move the hostilities any nearer a resolution.

Putin may actually be exploiting the US leader's wish for a settlement – and belief in in-person deal-making - as a method of influencing him.

During the summer, Putin consented to a summit in Alaska just as it appeared likely that the president would sign off on legislative penalties supported by Senate Republicans. That legislation was afterwards put on hold.

Recently, as news emerged that the US administration was considering seriously sending long-range missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Kyiv, the president of Russia phoned Trump who then promoted the possible meeting in Hungary.

The following day, the president welcomed Ukraine's leader at the executive residence, but left empty-handed after a allegedly tense meeting.

The US leader maintained that he was not being played by the Russian president.

"As you are aware, I've been played throughout my career by skilled operators, and I came out successfully," he said.

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

"As soon as the issue of advanced weaponry became a less accessible for us – for Ukraine – Russia almost automatically became less engaged in negotiations," he said.

So, in a short period, the president has bounced from considering the idea of sending missiles to the Eastern European country to organizing a Budapest summit with Russia's leader and privately urging the Ukrainian president to cede the entire Donbas region – including territory Russian forces has been unable to conquer.

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

On the campaign trail last year, Trump vowed that he could resolve the conflict in Ukraine in a very short time. He has since discarded that pledge, saying that concluding the war is proving harder than he anticipated.

It has been a uncommon admission of the limits of his authority – and the challenge of finding a framework for peace when both parties wants, or can afford to, cease hostilities.