🔗 Share this article

Accounts of an impending US-Russia leadership summit have been greatly exaggerated, it seems.

Only a few days after President Trump said he planned to confer with Russia's leader Putin in Budapest - "within two weeks or so" - the summit has been suspended indefinitely.

A preliminary get-together by the both countries' top diplomats has been called off, as well.

"I prefer not to have a wasted meeting," President Trump informed reporters at the executive mansion on Tuesday afternoon. "I aim to avoid a waste of time, so I'll see what transpires."

• Donald Trump says he did not want a 'wasted meeting' after plan for Putin talks shelved
• Disappointment in Kyiv as Zelensky leaves Washington empty-handed

The frequently changing summit is another development in Trump's efforts to broker an conclusion to hostilities in the Eastern European nation – a topic of increased attention for the American leader after he arranged a ceasefire and hostage release agreement in Gaza.

During a speech in Egypt last week to celebrate that ceasefire agreement, the president turned to Steve Witkoff, with a new request.

"It is essential to get Russia resolved," he declared.

Nonetheless, the conditions that aligned to make a Gaza breakthrough possible for Witkoff and his team may be challenging to duplicate in a conflict in Ukraine that has been raging for almost several years.

Reduced Influence

According to Witkoff, the key to achieving a agreement was the Israeli government's move to attack Hamas negotiators in Qatar. It was a move that infuriated America's Arab allies but gave the president bargaining power to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into making a deal.

The US president gained from a history of siding with Israel since his first term, encompassing his choice to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem, to alter US policy on the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, more recently, his support for Israeli defense operations against the Islamic Republic.

The American leader, 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 connections in politics and business to influential Arab nations in the region, and he had a wealth of negotiating strength to secure an deal.

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, by contrast, the president has significantly reduced leverage. In recent months, he has vacillated between attempts to pressure Putin and then the Ukrainian leader, all with little seeming effect.

Trump has threatened to impose additional penalties on Russia's oil and gas sales and to supply the Ukrainian forces with new long-range weapons. But he has also acknowledged that doing so could disrupt the global economy and intensify the conflict.

Meanwhile, the president has publicly berated Ukraine's president, halting briefly information exchange with the country and suspending arms shipments to the country - only to then back off in the face of worried European partners who caution a defeat of Ukraine could destabilise the whole area.

The president loves to tout his ability to sit down and negotiate deals, but his face-to-face meetings with both Putin and Zelensky have not appeared to move the war any nearer a resolution.

The Russian president may in fact be exploiting Trump's desire for a settlement – and belief in direct negotiations - as a means of influencing him.

During the summer, Putin agreed to a summit in Alaska at the time when it seemed probable that the president would approve on legislative penalties backed by Senate Republicans. That legislation was subsequently delayed.

Last week, as reports spread that the White House was considering seriously shipping long-range missiles and air defense systems to Ukraine, the president of Russia called Trump who then touted the potential summit in Budapest.

The following day, the president hosted Ukraine's leader at the executive residence, but left empty-handed after a reportedly strained discussion.

The US leader insisted that he was not being manipulated by Putin.

"As you are aware, I have been manipulated throughout my career by skilled operators, and I came out really well," he said.

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

"As soon as the matter of long-range mobility became a less accessible for Ukraine – for Ukraine – Russia almost automatically became less interested in diplomacy," he said.

So, in a short period, the president has shifted from entertaining the prospect of providing weapons to Ukraine to planning a Budapest summit with Russia's leader and confidentially pressuring Zelensky to cede all of Donbas – even territory Russia has been failed to capture.

He has ultimately settled on advocating a ceasefire along present frontlines – something the Russian government has refused to accept.

During his election campaign previously, the candidate promised that he could end the Ukraine war in a very short time. He has subsequently discarded that commitment, admitting that concluding the hostilities is proving harder than he anticipated.

It has been a uncommon admission of the limits of his authority – and the difficulty of establishing a peace plan when both parties wants, or is able to, cease hostilities.