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

Just days after Donald Trump announced he intended 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 initial get-together by the both countries' leading diplomats has been called off, as well.

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

• Donald Trump says he wished to avoid a 'unproductive session' after arrangement for Putin talks postponed
• Letdown in Kyiv as Zelensky departs Washington empty-handed

The frequently changing meeting is just the latest twist in Trump's attempts to broker an conclusion to hostilities in Ukraine – a topic of renewed focus for the US president after he orchestrated a truce and prisoner exchange deal in the Palestinian territory.

During a speech 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 done," he declared.

However, the circumstances that converged to make a Middle East success possible for Witkoff and his team may be difficult to replicate in a Ukraine war that has been ongoing for almost four years.

Reduced Influence

According to Witkoff, the crucial element to achieving a deal was Israel's decision to attack representatives of Hamas in Qatar. It was a action that infuriated America's Arab allies but provided the president leverage to compel Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu into reaching an agreement.

Trump gained from a history of siding with Israel since his first term, encompassing his decision to relocate the American embassy to the contested city, to change America's position on the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, more recently, his backing for Israeli defense operations against Iran.

The US president, actually, is better regarded among the Israeli public than their prime minister – a position that gave him unique influence over the Israeli leader.

Combine the president's connections in politics and business to key Arab players in the region, and he had a wealth of diplomatic muscle to secure an agreement.

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

The US leader has warned to impose additional penalties on Russia's oil and gas sales and to provide the Ukrainian forces with new long-range weapons. But he has also recognised that such actions could disrupt the global economy and intensify the war.

At the same time, the president has criticized openly Zelensky, temporarily cutting off intelligence-sharing with the country and suspending weapon deliveries to the nation - then to retreat in the face of concerned European allies who caution a Ukrainian collapse could disrupt the entire region.

Trump loves to tout his ability to meet and hammer out deals, but his face-to-face meetings with both Putin and Zelensky haven't seemed to move the war any nearer a resolution.

Putin may actually 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 summit in Alaska just as it seemed probable that the president would sign off on legislative penalties backed by GOP senators. That bill was subsequently delayed.

Last week, as news emerged that the US administration was considering seriously shipping Tomahawk cruise missiles and air defense systems to Ukraine, the Russian leader called the US president who then promoted the possible summit in Hungary.

The next day, Trump hosted Zelensky at the executive residence, but departed empty-handed after a allegedly strained discussion.

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

"You know, I have been manipulated throughout my career by the best of them, and I emerged successfully," he said.

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

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

So, in a short period, Trump has bounced from considering the idea of sending missiles to the Eastern European country to organizing a meeting in Hungary with Putin and confidentially pressuring Zelensky to surrender the entire Donbas region – even territory Russia has been failed to capture.

He has ultimately settled on calling for a truce along current battle lines – something Russia has rejected.

On the campaign trail last year, the candidate promised that he could resolve the conflict in Ukraine in a very short time. He has subsequently abandoned that pledge, saying that concluding the war is turning out harder than he expected.

It has been a uncommon admission of the constraints of his authority – and the difficulty of finding a peace plan when both parties desires, or can afford to, cease hostilities.