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Reports of an upcoming American-Russian leadership meeting have been overstated, it seems.

Just days after Donald Trump announced he planned to meet Russian President Putin in Budapest - "in approximately a fortnight" - the high-level talks has been put off without a new date.

A initial meeting by the two nations' top diplomats has been cancelled, too.

"I prefer not to have a wasted meeting," Donald Trump informed reporters at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. "I don't want a pointless effort, so I will observe what transpires."

• Trump says he wished to avoid a 'unproductive session' after plan for Putin talks postponed
• Disappointment in Kyiv as President Zelensky leaves White House without results

The frequently changing meeting is another development in the president's attempts to broker an conclusion to hostilities in the Eastern European nation – a topic of renewed focus for the American leader after he arranged a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement in Gaza.

During a speech in Egypt last week to commemorate that truce deal, the president turned to his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a fresh directive.

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

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

Reduced Influence

Per Witkoff, the crucial element to unlocking a agreement was the Israeli government's move to strike representatives of Hamas in Qatar. It was a move that angered US partners in the Arab world but gave Trump leverage to compel Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu into making a deal.

Trump gained from a history of siding with the Israeli state since his initial presidency, encompassing his choice to move the US embassy to the contested city, to change US policy on the legality of Jewish communities in the West Bank and, more recently, his backing for Israel's military campaign against Iran.

The US president, in fact, is more popular among Israelis than their prime minister – a position that provided him with unique influence over the Israeli leader.

Add in the president's political and economic ties to influential Arab nations in the area, and he had a wealth of diplomatic muscle to secure an deal.

In the Ukraine war, on the other hand, Trump has significantly reduced leverage. Over the past nine months, he has swung between attempts to pressure the Russian president and then the Ukrainian leader, all with minimal visible progress.

The US leader has threatened to enact additional penalties on Russian energy exports and to provide the Ukrainian forces with new long-range weapons. But he has also recognised that doing so could harm the global economy and further escalate the conflict.

At the same time, the US leader has publicly berated Ukraine's president, halting briefly information exchange with the country and pausing weapon deliveries to the nation - then to back off in the face of worried European partners who warn a Ukrainian collapse could destabilise the whole area.

Trump often boasts about his skill to meet and hammer out agreements, but his face-to-face meetings with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders have not appeared to move the war any nearer a peaceful end.

The Russian president may actually be exploiting the US leader's wish for a deal – and faith in direct negotiations - as a method of manipulating him.

In July, Putin consented to a summit in the US state at the time when it appeared likely that Trump would approve on legislative penalties backed by Senate Republicans. That bill was subsequently put on hold.

Recently, 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 touted the possible meeting in Hungary.

The next day, the president welcomed Ukraine's leader at the executive residence, but departed without agreements after a allegedly strained discussion.

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

"As you are aware, I've been played throughout my career by skilled operators, and I came out really well," he remarked.

However the president of Ukraine subsequently made note of the timeline of developments.

"As soon as the matter of long-range mobility became a little further away for us – for Ukraine – Russia quickly became less interested in diplomacy," he said.

So, in a matter of days, the president has shifted from considering the idea of sending missiles to Ukraine to planning a meeting in Hungary with Putin and privately urging the Ukrainian president to surrender all of Donbas – including territory Russia has been failed to capture.

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

During his election campaign previously, the candidate vowed that he could resolve the Ukraine war in a matter of hours. He has subsequently discarded that commitment, saying that ending the hostilities is proving more difficult than he expected.

It has been a rare acknowledgement of the limits of his power – and the difficulty of finding a framework for peace when neither side desires, or can afford to, give up the fight.