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

Only a few days after President Trump announced he planned to meet Russian President Putin in Budapest - "in approximately a fortnight" - the high-level talks has been suspended indefinitely.

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

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

• Trump states he did not want a 'unproductive session' after arrangement for negotiations with Putin postponed
• Letdown in Kyiv as Zelensky departs Washington without results

The on-again, off-again summit is another development in Trump's efforts to broker an conclusion to war in Ukraine – a topic of renewed focus for the US president after he orchestrated a truce and hostage release deal in Gaza.

While making remarks in the North African country recently to celebrate that truce deal, the president addressed his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a new request.

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

Nonetheless, the circumstances that converged to make a Middle East success possible for Witkoff and his team may be challenging to replicate in a conflict in Ukraine that has been raging for almost several years.

Reduced Influence

According to the lead negotiator, the crucial element to achieving a agreement was Israel's move to attack Hamas negotiators in the Gulf state. It was a move that angered America's Arab allies but gave Trump leverage to compel Israel's leader Netanyahu into reaching an agreement.

Trump benefited from a long record of siding with Israel since his initial presidency, including his decision to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem, to change US policy on the lawfulness of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, in recent times, his support for Israeli defense operations against Iran.

The US president, in fact, is better regarded among the Israeli public than Netanyahu – a situation that gave him unique influence over the nation's head.

Combine the president's connections in politics and business to influential Arab nations in the area, and he had a wealth of negotiating strength to secure an agreement.

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, by contrast, the president has much less influence. In recent months, he has swung between efforts to pressure the Russian president and then the Ukrainian leader, all with minimal visible progress.

The US leader has warned to impose additional penalties on Russia's oil and gas sales and to supply the Ukrainian forces with new long-range weapons. But he has also recognised that doing so could disrupt the world's financial stability and intensify the conflict.

At the same time, the president has publicly berated Zelensky, halting briefly intelligence-sharing with Ukraine and suspending arms shipments to the country - then to retreat in the wake of concerned European allies who caution a Ukrainian collapse could destabilise the entire region.

The president loves to tout his ability to sit down and negotiate deals, but his face-to-face meetings with both Putin and Zelensky haven't seemed to move the war any closer to a resolution.

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

During the summer, Putin consented to a high-level meeting in Alaska at the time when it appeared likely that the president would approve on congressional sanctions package supported 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 president of Russia phoned Trump who then touted the potential summit in Hungary.

The next day, Trump hosted Zelensky at the White House, but left without agreements after a allegedly strained discussion.

Trump maintained that he was not being played by Putin.

"As you are aware, I have been manipulated all my life by the best of them, and I emerged really well," he said.

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

"Once the matter of advanced weaponry became a little further away for us – for Ukraine – the Russian side almost automatically became less interested in diplomacy," he stated.

Thus, in a matter of days, the president has bounced from entertaining the prospect of providing weapons to the Eastern European country to planning a meeting in Hungary with Putin and privately pressuring Zelensky to surrender all of Donbas – even territory Russia has been failed to capture.

He has finally settled on advocating a ceasefire along current battle lines – a proposal Russia has refused to accept.

On the campaign trail last year, the candidate promised that he could end the conflict in Ukraine in a matter of hours. He has subsequently abandoned that pledge, admitting that ending the hostilities is turning out harder than he expected.

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