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Reports of an upcoming US-Russia leadership summit have been overstated, apparently.

Only a few days after President Trump announced he planned to meet Russia's leader Putin in the Hungarian capital - "in approximately a fortnight" - the summit has been put off without a new date.

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

"I prefer not to have a wasted meeting," Donald Trump informed the press at the White House on a recent weekday. "I don't want a pointless effort, so I'll see what happens."

• Trump says he did not want a 'unproductive session' after plan for Putin talks shelved
• Letdown in Kyiv as Zelensky departs Washington without results

The on-again, off-again summit is just the latest development in Trump's efforts to broker an conclusion to war in the Eastern European nation – a subject of increased attention for the US president after he arranged a truce and hostage release deal in Gaza.

While making remarks in the North African country recently to commemorate that truce deal, the president turned to Steve Witkoff, with a new request.

"We have to get the Russian situation resolved," he said.

However, the circumstances 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 ongoing for nearing several years.

Reduced Influence

According to Witkoff, the crucial element to unlocking a agreement was Israel's move to strike representatives of Hamas in the Gulf state. It was a action that angered America's Arab allies but gave Trump leverage to compel Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu into reaching an agreement.

Trump gained from a long record of siding with Israel dating back to his first term, encompassing his choice to relocate the US embassy to the contested city, to change US policy on the lawfulness of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and, more recently, his support for Israeli defense operations against the Islamic Republic.

The US president, actually, is more popular among Israelis than Netanyahu – a position that provided him with special sway over the Israeli leader.

Add in the president's connections in politics and business to influential Arab nations in the region, and he had a abundant diplomatic muscle to secure an agreement.

In the Ukraine war, by contrast, the president has much less influence. Over the past nine months, he has vacillated between attempts to pressure Putin and then Zelensky, all with minimal visible progress.

The US leader has warned to enact additional penalties on Russia's oil and gas sales and to supply the Ukrainian forces with advanced missile systems. But he has also acknowledged that doing so could harm the world's financial stability and intensify the war.

At the same time, the US leader has publicly berated Zelensky, halting briefly information exchange with the country and suspending arms shipments to the nation - only to then back off in the face of worried European partners who warn a defeat of Ukraine could disrupt the whole area.

The president loves to tout his skill to sit down and negotiate agreements, but his personal discussions with both Putin and Zelensky haven't seemed to move the hostilities any nearer a peaceful end.

Putin may in fact be using the US leader's wish for a deal – and faith in in-person deal-making - as a means of manipulating him.

During the summer, Russia's leader agreed to a summit in the US state at the time when it appeared likely that the president would sign off on congressional sanctions package backed by GOP senators. That bill was subsequently delayed.

Recently, as reports spread that the White House was considering seriously shipping Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Kyiv, the Russian leader phoned the US president who then touted the possible summit in Budapest.

The following day, Trump hosted Ukraine's leader at the executive residence, but left empty-handed after a reportedly strained discussion.

Trump insisted that he was not being played by the Russian president.

"You know, I have been manipulated all my life by the best of them, and I came out really well," he remarked.

However the president of Ukraine subsequently made note of the sequence of events.

"As soon as the issue of long-range mobility became a little further away for Ukraine – for our nation – the Russian side quickly became less engaged in diplomacy," he said.

Thus, in a short period, Trump has shifted from considering the idea of providing weapons to Ukraine to planning a Budapest summit with Putin and privately pressuring Zelensky to cede the entire Donbas region – including land Russia has been failed to capture.

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

On the campaign trail previously, the candidate promised that he could resolve the Ukraine war in a matter of hours. He has subsequently discarded that commitment, saying that ending the war is turning out more difficult than he anticipated.

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