🔗 Share this article

Accounts of an upcoming US-Russia leadership meeting have been overstated, apparently.

Just days after President Trump said he intended to confer with Russia's leader Putin in Budapest - "within two weeks or so" - 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 don't want to have a wasted meeting," Donald Trump told the press at the executive mansion on a recent weekday. "I aim to avoid a waste of time, so I will observe what happens."

• Donald Trump states he wished to avoid a 'wasted meeting' after plan for Putin talks postponed
• Letdown in Kyiv as Zelensky leaves White House without results

The frequently changing summit is another development in Trump's efforts to broker an end to war in the Eastern European nation – a topic of increased attention for the US president after he orchestrated a ceasefire and hostage release agreement in Gaza.

During a speech in the North African country last week to celebrate that truce deal, the president turned to his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a new request.

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

Nonetheless, the circumstances that converged to make a Middle East success possible for the negotiation team may be difficult to duplicate in a conflict in Ukraine that has been raging for nearing four years.

Reduced Influence

According to Witkoff, the key to achieving a agreement was the Israeli government's move to attack representatives of Hamas in the Gulf state. It was a move that angered US partners in the Arab world but gave the president leverage to compel Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu into reaching an agreement.

Trump benefited from a history of siding with the Israeli state since his initial presidency, including his decision to move 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 support for Israeli defense operations against the Islamic Republic.

The US president, in fact, is better regarded among the Israeli public than their prime minister – a situation that gave him 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 secure an deal.

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, by contrast, the president has significantly reduced influence. In recent months, he has vacillated between attempts to strong-arm the Russian president and then the Ukrainian leader, all with little seeming effect.

Trump has warned to impose new sanctions on Russia's oil and gas sales and to provide the Ukrainian forces with advanced missile systems. But he has also acknowledged that doing so could disrupt the global economy and further escalate the war.

Meanwhile, the president has publicly berated Zelensky, temporarily cutting off intelligence-sharing with Ukraine and pausing arms shipments to the nation - only to then back off in the face of concerned European allies who caution a Ukrainian collapse could destabilise the entire region.

The president loves to tout his skill to meet and hammer out deals, but his personal discussions with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders have not appeared to move the war any nearer a resolution.

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

During the summer, Russia's leader consented to a summit in the US state at the time when it appeared likely that Trump would sign off on legislative penalties backed by Senate Republicans. That bill was subsequently delayed.

Last week, as reports spread that the White House was considering seriously shipping Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Ukraine, the Russian leader called the US president who then touted the possible meeting in Budapest.

The next day, the president hosted Zelensky at the White House, but departed empty-handed after a allegedly strained discussion.

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

"You know, I've been played throughout my career by skilled operators, and I emerged successfully," he said.

But the president of Ukraine subsequently commented on the sequence of events.

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

Thus, in a short period, the president has shifted from entertaining the prospect of providing weapons to Ukraine to organizing a Budapest summit with Putin and confidentially urging the Ukrainian president to cede the entire Donbas region – including land Russia has been unable to conquer.

He has finally settled on advocating a ceasefire along current battle lines – a proposal Russia has rejected.

On the campaign trail last year, the candidate promised that he could resolve the conflict in Ukraine in a very short time. He has subsequently abandoned that commitment, saying that concluding the hostilities is proving more difficult than he anticipated.

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