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Accounts of an upcoming US-Russia presidential summit have been overstated, apparently.

Just days after President Trump announced he planned to meet Russia's leader Putin in Budapest - "within two weeks or so" - the summit has been suspended indefinitely.

A initial get-together by the two nations' top diplomats has been called off, too.

"I don't want to have a fruitless discussion," Donald Trump told the press at the executive mansion on a recent weekday. "I don't want a waste of time, so I'll see what transpires."

• Donald Trump says he wished to avoid a 'unproductive session' after plan for Putin talks shelved
• Disappointment in Ukraine's capital as President Zelensky departs White House without results

The on-again, off-again summit is just the latest twist in Trump's attempts to mediate an conclusion to hostilities in Ukraine – a subject of renewed focus for the American leader after he orchestrated a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement in Gaza.

While making remarks in the North African country recently to celebrate that truce deal, Trump addressed his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a new request.

"It is essential to get Russia done," he said.

Nonetheless, the circumstances that aligned to make a Middle East success possible for the negotiation team may be challenging to duplicate in a conflict in Ukraine that has been raging for almost several years.

Less Leverage

According to the lead negotiator, the crucial element to achieving a agreement was the Israeli government's move to attack Hamas negotiators in Qatar. It was a move that angered America's Arab allies but provided Trump bargaining power to compel Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu into reaching an agreement.

The US president benefited from a long record of supporting the Israeli state dating back to his first term, including his decision to relocate the US embassy to the contested city, to change America's position on the legality of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and, in recent times, his backing for Israeli defense operations against Iran.

The American leader, in fact, is better regarded among Israelis than Netanyahu – a situation that provided him with unique influence over the Israeli leader.

Add in Trump's connections in politics and business to influential Arab nations in the area, and he had a abundant negotiating strength to force an deal.

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, by contrast, the president has significantly reduced influence. In recent months, he has vacillated between efforts to pressure Putin and then Zelensky, all with minimal visible progress.

The US leader has warned to impose new sanctions on Russian energy exports and to provide Ukraine with new long-range weapons. But he has also acknowledged that doing so could disrupt the global economy and further escalate the war.

Meanwhile, the US leader has criticized openly Ukraine's president, halting briefly intelligence-sharing with the country and suspending arms shipments to the nation - only to then retreat in the wake of concerned European allies who caution a defeat of Ukraine could destabilise the entire region.

The president often boasts about his ability to sit down and hammer out deals, but his personal discussions with both Putin and Zelensky have not appeared to move the war any closer to a resolution.

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

During the summer, Putin consented to a summit in the US state just as it seemed probable that the president would sign off on congressional sanctions package supported by Senate Republicans. That legislation was subsequently put on hold.

Recently, as reports spread that the US administration was considering seriously sending Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Kyiv, the Russian leader phoned the US president who then promoted the possible meeting in Budapest.

The following day, the president welcomed Ukraine's leader at the executive residence, but departed empty-handed after a reportedly tense meeting.

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

"You know, I've been played all my life by the best of them, and I emerged successfully," he said.

But the Ukrainian leader subsequently commented on the sequence of events.

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

So, in a matter of days, Trump has shifted from entertaining the prospect of providing weapons to Ukraine to organizing a Budapest summit with Russia's leader and confidentially pressuring Zelensky to surrender all of Donbas – including territory Russian forces has been unable to conquer.

He has ultimately settled on calling for a ceasefire along current battle lines – something the Russian government has rejected.

On the campaign trail last year, Trump promised that he could resolve the Ukraine war in a very short time. He has since discarded that pledge, admitting that concluding the war is turning out more difficult than he anticipated.

It has been a rare acknowledgement of the limits of his power – and the difficulty of establishing a peace plan when neither side wants, or is able to, give up the fight.