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Reports of an upcoming US-Russia leadership meeting have been overstated, it seems.

Just days after President Trump announced he intended to meet Russia's leader Putin in the Hungarian capital - "within two weeks or so" - the summit has been suspended indefinitely.

A preliminary meeting by the both countries' top diplomats has been cancelled, too.

"I prefer not to have a wasted meeting," Donald Trump told the press at the executive mansion on a recent weekday. "I aim to avoid a pointless effort, so I'll see what happens."

• Donald Trump states he did not want a 'unproductive session' after arrangement for Putin talks postponed
• Letdown in Ukraine's capital as President Zelensky departs White House without results

The on-again, off-again summit is another twist in the president's attempts to mediate an end to war in Ukraine – a subject of increased attention for the US president after he orchestrated a truce and hostage release agreement in Gaza.

During a speech in the North African country recently to commemorate that truce deal, the president addressed Steve Witkoff, with a fresh directive.

"It is essential to get Russia resolved," he said.

Nonetheless, the circumstances that aligned to make a Middle East success achievable for the negotiation team may be difficult to replicate in a Ukraine war that has been ongoing for almost four years.

Less Leverage

Per the lead negotiator, the crucial element to unlocking a deal was Israel's move to attack representatives of Hamas in Qatar. It was a action that infuriated America's Arab allies but provided Trump bargaining power to pressure Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu into making a deal.

Trump gained from a history of supporting the Israeli state since his first term, including his choice to move the US embassy to the contested city, to alter America's position on the legality of Jewish communities in the West Bank and, in recent times, his backing for Israeli defense operations against Iran.

The US president, in fact, is better regarded among Israelis than Netanyahu – a situation that provided him with special sway over the nation's head.

Combine the president's connections in politics and business to influential Arab nations in the region, and he had a abundant negotiating strength to force an agreement.

In the Ukraine war, by contrast, the president has much less leverage. In recent months, he has swung between attempts to strong-arm the Russian president and then the Ukrainian leader, all with little seeming effect.

The US leader 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 such actions could disrupt the global economy and further escalate the war.

Meanwhile, the president has criticized openly Ukraine's president, temporarily cutting off information exchange with Ukraine and suspending arms shipments to the country - only to then retreat in the face of concerned European allies who caution a defeat of Ukraine could destabilise the whole area.

The president often boasts about his ability to meet and hammer out agreements, but his face-to-face meetings with both Putin and Zelensky have not appeared to advance the hostilities any closer to a peaceful end.

Putin may actually be exploiting the US leader's wish for a deal – and belief in direct negotiations - as a means of influencing him.

In July, Russia's leader agreed to a high-level meeting in Alaska just as it seemed probable that Trump would approve on congressional sanctions package backed by Senate Republicans. That legislation was subsequently put on hold.

Last week, as news emerged that the US administration was considering seriously sending Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Kyiv, the Russian leader called the US president who then touted the possible summit in Budapest.

The next day, the president welcomed Ukraine's leader at the executive residence, but left empty-handed after a reportedly strained discussion.

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

"As you are aware, I have been manipulated all my life by skilled operators, and I came out really well," he remarked.

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

"Once the issue of long-range mobility became a little further away for us – for Ukraine – the Russian side almost automatically became less interested in diplomacy," he said.

Thus, in a short period, the president has bounced from entertaining the prospect of providing weapons to Ukraine to planning a Budapest summit with Russia's leader and confidentially urging Zelensky to cede the entire Donbas region – even land Russia has been failed to capture.

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

During his election campaign previously, the candidate promised that he could resolve the Ukraine war in a matter of hours. He has since discarded that pledge, admitting that concluding the war is proving harder than he anticipated.

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