🔗 Share this article

Accounts of an upcoming US-Russia leadership summit have been greatly exaggerated, apparently.

Just days after President Trump announced he planned to confer with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Hungarian capital - "within two weeks or so" - the high-level talks has been put off without a new date.

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

"I don't want to have a fruitless discussion," Donald Trump informed the press at the White House on a recent weekday. "I aim to avoid a waste of time, so I'll see what happens."

• Trump says he did not want a 'wasted meeting' after arrangement for negotiations with Putin postponed
• Disappointment in Kyiv as Zelensky departs White House empty-handed

The frequently changing meeting is just the latest development in Trump's attempts to mediate an end to war in the Eastern European nation – a topic of increased attention for the American leader after he orchestrated a truce and prisoner exchange deal in Gaza.

While making remarks in Egypt last week to celebrate that ceasefire agreement, Trump addressed his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a fresh directive.

"It is essential to get the Russian situation resolved," he said.

However, the circumstances that aligned to make a Gaza breakthrough achievable for Witkoff and his team may be difficult to duplicate in a conflict in Ukraine that has been raging for nearing four years.

Reduced Influence

Per the lead negotiator, the key to achieving a deal was the Israeli government's move to attack Hamas negotiators in the Gulf state. It was a move that infuriated US partners in the Arab world but provided Trump leverage to pressure Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu into making a deal.

The US president benefited from a long record of siding with Israel since his first term, encompassing his decision to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem, to alter America's position on the legality of Jewish communities in the West Bank and, in recent times, his backing for Israeli defense operations against Iran.

The US president, in fact, is better regarded among Israelis than their prime minister – a situation that provided him with special sway over the Israeli leader.

Combine the president's connections in politics and business to key Arab players in the region, and he had a abundant negotiating strength to force an deal.

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

The US leader has warned to enact additional penalties on Russian energy exports and to supply Ukraine with new long-range weapons. But he has also recognised that such actions could harm the world's financial stability and further escalate the war.

At the same time, the president has criticized openly Zelensky, halting briefly intelligence-sharing with Ukraine and suspending arms shipments to the country - only to then retreat in the wake of concerned European allies who caution a Ukrainian collapse could disrupt the whole area.

The president often boasts about his ability to sit down and hammer out agreements, 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 using the US leader's wish for a settlement – and belief in direct negotiations - as a means of influencing him.

In July, Russia's leader consented to a high-level meeting in the US state just as it appeared likely that Trump would approve on congressional sanctions package backed by Senate Republicans. That bill was afterwards put on hold.

Recently, as news emerged that the US administration was seriously contemplating shipping Tomahawk cruise missiles and air defense systems to Kyiv, the Russian leader called the US president who then touted the potential summit in Hungary.

The next day, Trump hosted Zelensky at the White House, but departed without agreements after a allegedly tense meeting.

Trump insisted that he was not being manipulated by Putin.

"As you are aware, 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 commented on the timeline of developments.

"Once the issue of long-range mobility became a little further away for us – for our nation – the Russian side quickly became less interested in diplomacy," he stated.

Thus, in a matter of days, Trump has bounced from considering the idea of providing weapons to Ukraine to planning a Budapest summit with Putin and privately urging the Ukrainian president to surrender all of Donbas – including territory Russian forces has been failed to capture.

He has ultimately settled on calling for a ceasefire along present frontlines – something Russia has refused to accept.

During his election campaign previously, Trump promised that he could end the Ukraine war in a very short time. He has since abandoned that commitment, admitting that ending the war is proving harder than he anticipated.

It has been a rare acknowledgement of the limits of his power – and the difficulty of finding a peace plan when both parties wants, or is able to, cease hostilities.