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Accounts of an impending US-Russia presidential meeting have been greatly exaggerated, apparently.

Only a few days after President Trump announced he planned to meet Russian President Putin in the Hungarian capital - "within two weeks or so" - the summit has been put off without a new date.

A initial meeting by the both countries' leading diplomats has been cancelled, too.

"I prefer not to have a fruitless discussion," Donald Trump told the press at the executive mansion on a recent weekday. "I aim to avoid a pointless effort, so I will observe what transpires."

• Trump states he did not want a 'wasted meeting' after plan for negotiations with Putin shelved
• Disappointment in Kyiv as President Zelensky leaves White House without results

The frequently changing summit is another development in Trump's attempts to mediate an end to war in the Eastern European nation – a topic of renewed focus for the American leader after he arranged a truce and prisoner exchange agreement in the Palestinian territory.

While making remarks in Egypt last week to celebrate that truce deal, the president addressed his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a fresh directive.

"We have to get Russia resolved," he said.

Nonetheless, the conditions that aligned to make a Middle East success achievable 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

Per Witkoff, the crucial element to achieving a deal was the Israeli government's move to attack Hamas negotiators in Qatar. It was a action that angered America's Arab allies but gave the president leverage to pressure Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu into reaching an agreement.

The US president gained from a long record of supporting Israel since his first term, including his decision to move the US embassy to the contested city, to alter US policy on the lawfulness of Jewish communities in the occupied territories and, more recently, his support for Israeli defense operations against the Islamic Republic.

The US president, in fact, is more popular among Israelis than Netanyahu – a situation that gave him special sway over the nation's head.

Add in the president's political and economic ties to influential Arab nations in the region, and he had a abundant diplomatic muscle to force an deal.

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, by contrast, the president has much less influence. Over the past nine months, he has swung between efforts to strong-arm Putin and then the Ukrainian leader, all with little seeming effect.

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

Meanwhile, the US leader has criticized openly Ukraine's president, halting briefly information exchange with the country and pausing arms shipments to the nation - then to retreat in the face of worried European partners who warn a defeat of Ukraine could destabilise the whole area.

The president loves to tout his skill to meet and hammer out agreements, but his personal discussions with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders have not appeared to move the hostilities any closer to a peaceful end.

The Russian president may in fact be using the US leader's wish for a deal – and belief in direct negotiations - as a method of influencing him.

In July, Putin consented to a high-level meeting in the US state just as it appeared likely that the president would sign off on congressional sanctions package backed by Senate Republicans. That bill was afterwards delayed.

Last week, as news emerged that the White House was seriously contemplating sending Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Kyiv, the president of Russia phoned Trump who then promoted the possible meeting in Hungary.

The next day, Trump hosted Zelensky at the executive residence, but left empty-handed after a allegedly tense meeting.

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

"You know, I've been played throughout my career by skilled operators, and I came out successfully," he remarked.

But the Ukrainian leader later made note of the sequence of events.

"As soon as the matter of long-range mobility became a less accessible for us – for Ukraine – Russia almost automatically became less engaged in diplomacy," he stated.

Thus, in a matter of days, Trump has bounced from entertaining the prospect of sending missiles to the Eastern European country to planning a Budapest summit with Russia's leader and privately urging the Ukrainian president to surrender the entire Donbas region – even territory Russian forces has been failed to capture.

He has finally decided on advocating a truce along present frontlines – a proposal the Russian government has refused to accept.

On the campaign trail last year, the candidate vowed that he could resolve 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 anticipated.

It has been a uncommon admission of the constraints of his power – and the difficulty of establishing a peace plan when neither side wants, or is able to, cease hostilities.