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Reports of an upcoming US-Russia presidential meeting have been greatly exaggerated, apparently.

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

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

"I don't want to have a fruitless discussion," President Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. "I aim to avoid a waste of time, so I'll see what happens."

• Donald Trump states he did not want a 'unproductive session' after arrangement for negotiations with Putin postponed
• Disappointment in Kyiv as President Zelensky leaves White House without results

The on-again, off-again summit is just the latest twist in the president's efforts to mediate an conclusion to war in the Eastern European nation – a subject of renewed focus for the US president after he arranged a truce and hostage release deal in the Palestinian territory.

During a speech in Egypt last week to commemorate that truce deal, Trump turned to Steve Witkoff, with a new request.

"We have to get Russia done," he declared.

However, the conditions that converged to make a Gaza breakthrough achievable for the negotiation team may be difficult to duplicate in a Ukraine war that has been ongoing for nearing several years.

Reduced Influence

According to the lead negotiator, the crucial element to unlocking a deal was the Israeli government's decision to strike Hamas negotiators in the Gulf state. It was a move that infuriated US partners in the Arab world but gave the president leverage to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into reaching an agreement.

The US president gained from a history of supporting Israel since his initial presidency, including his decision to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem, to change America's position on the lawfulness of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, in recent times, his support for Israel's military campaign against the Islamic Republic.

The US president, actually, is more popular among the Israeli public than Netanyahu – a situation that provided him with special sway over the nation's head.

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

In the Ukraine war, on the other hand, Trump has significantly reduced influence. Over the past nine months, he has vacillated between efforts to pressure the Russian president and then Zelensky, all with little seeming effect.

Trump has threatened to impose additional penalties on Russian energy exports and to supply Ukraine with advanced missile systems. But he has also recognised that such actions could disrupt the world's financial stability and further escalate the war.

At the same time, the president has criticized openly Ukraine's president, halting briefly intelligence-sharing with Ukraine and suspending arms shipments to the country - only to then back off in the wake of concerned European allies who caution a defeat of Ukraine could destabilise the entire region.

Trump loves to tout his skill to sit down and hammer out deals, but his face-to-face meetings with both Putin and Zelensky have not appeared to move the war any closer to a resolution.

Putin may in fact be exploiting the US leader's wish for a settlement – and belief in in-person deal-making - as a means of influencing him.

In July, Russia's leader consented to a summit in Alaska at the time when it seemed probable that the president would approve on congressional sanctions package backed by Senate Republicans. That bill was afterwards put on hold.

Recently, as news emerged that the White House was seriously contemplating shipping long-range missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Kyiv, the Russian leader phoned Trump who then promoted the potential meeting in Budapest.

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

The US leader insisted that he was not being played by the Russian president.

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

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

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

Thus, in a matter of days, the president has bounced from considering the idea of sending missiles to Ukraine to organizing a meeting in Hungary with Russia's leader and privately pressuring the Ukrainian president to cede all of Donbas – including territory Russia has been failed to capture.

He has finally settled on advocating a truce along present frontlines – a proposal the Russian government has rejected.

On the campaign trail previously, the candidate promised that he could end the conflict in Ukraine in a matter of hours. He has since discarded that commitment, admitting that concluding the war is turning out harder than he anticipated.

It has been a uncommon admission of the limits of his authority – and the difficulty of establishing a peace plan when both parties desires, or can afford to, give up the fight.