🔗 Share this article

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

Only a few days after Donald Trump announced he planned to confer with Russia's leader Putin in the Hungarian capital - "within two weeks or so" - the high-level talks has been suspended indefinitely.

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

"I prefer not to have a wasted meeting," President Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. "I aim to avoid a waste of time, so I will observe what happens."

• Donald Trump says he did not want a 'unproductive session' after arrangement for negotiations with Putin shelved
• Letdown in Kyiv as President Zelensky departs Washington without results

The on-again, off-again summit is just the latest development in the president's efforts to broker an conclusion to hostilities in Ukraine – a topic of renewed focus for the US president after he arranged a truce and prisoner exchange agreement in Gaza.

During a speech in the North African country last week to commemorate that truce deal, Trump addressed Steve Witkoff, with a new request.

"We have to get the Russian situation resolved," he said.

However, the conditions that converged 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 nearing several years.

Less Leverage

Per the lead negotiator, the key to achieving a deal was Israel's decision to strike Hamas negotiators in Qatar. It was a move that infuriated US partners in the Arab world but gave the president bargaining power to pressure Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu into making a deal.

The US president benefited from a long record of supporting Israel dating back to his initial presidency, including his choice to relocate the US embassy to the contested city, to alter America's position on the lawfulness of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, more recently, his support for Israel's military campaign against the Islamic Republic.

The American leader, actually, is better regarded among Israelis than their prime minister – a situation that gave him unique influence over the nation's head.

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

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, on the other hand, Trump has much less influence. Over the past nine months, he has swung between attempts to pressure Putin and then Zelensky, all with little seeming effect.

The US leader has threatened to impose additional penalties on Russian energy exports and to supply the Ukrainian forces with new long-range weapons. But he has also acknowledged that doing so could harm the world's financial stability and intensify the war.

Meanwhile, the president has publicly berated Ukraine's president, halting briefly information exchange with the country and suspending arms shipments to the nation - only to then back off in the wake of concerned European allies who caution a Ukrainian collapse could disrupt the entire region.

Trump loves to tout his skill to meet and hammer out deals, but his face-to-face meetings with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders haven't seemed to advance the hostilities any nearer a peaceful end.

The Russian president may actually be using the US leader's wish for a deal – and belief in in-person deal-making - as a means of influencing him.

In July, Putin consented to a summit in Alaska at the time when it seemed probable that the president would approve on legislative penalties backed by GOP senators. That legislation was afterwards delayed.

Recently, as news emerged that the US administration was seriously contemplating shipping Tomahawk cruise missiles and air defense systems to Ukraine, the president of Russia called Trump who then touted the potential meeting in Hungary.

The following day, Trump hosted Ukraine's leader at the executive residence, but departed without agreements after a allegedly tense meeting.

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

"As you are aware, I have been manipulated all my life by skilled operators, and I came out successfully," he remarked.

However the Ukrainian leader subsequently made note of the sequence of events.

"Once the matter of advanced weaponry became a little further away for Ukraine – for our nation – Russia almost automatically became less engaged in negotiations," he stated.

So, in a short period, Trump has bounced from entertaining the prospect of sending missiles to Ukraine to planning a Budapest summit with Russia's leader and privately pressuring Zelensky to cede the entire Donbas region – even territory Russian forces has been failed to capture.

He has finally decided on advocating a truce along current battle lines – a proposal the Russian government has rejected.

During his election campaign previously, Trump promised that he could end the Ukraine war in a matter of hours. He has since discarded that pledge, saying that ending the hostilities is turning out more difficult than he expected.

It has been a rare acknowledgement of the limits of his authority – and the challenge of establishing a framework for peace when neither side desires, or is able to, give up the fight.