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Accounts of an impending US-Russia presidential meeting have been greatly exaggerated, apparently.

Just days after Donald Trump announced he planned to meet Russia's leader Putin in the Hungarian capital - "in approximately a fortnight" - the high-level talks has been put off without a new date.

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

"I don't want to have a wasted meeting," President Trump informed the press at the executive mansion on a recent weekday. "I don't want a waste of time, so I'll see what transpires."

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The frequently changing summit is another twist in the president's efforts to broker an end to hostilities in the Eastern European nation – a subject of renewed focus for the American leader after he orchestrated a truce and prisoner exchange agreement in the Palestinian territory.

While making remarks in the North African country recently to commemorate that ceasefire agreement, Trump turned to his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a fresh directive.

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

However, the conditions that aligned to make a Gaza breakthrough achievable for the negotiation team may be challenging to duplicate in a conflict in Ukraine that has been ongoing for almost several years.

Less Leverage

According to the lead negotiator, the crucial element to achieving a deal was the Israeli government's decision to attack Hamas negotiators in the Gulf state. It was a move that angered US partners in the Arab world but provided the president leverage to pressure Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu into making a deal.

The US president gained from a history of siding with Israel since his initial presidency, including his choice to move the US embassy to the contested city, to change America's position on the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, in recent times, his support for Israel's military campaign against Iran.

The US president, actually, is better regarded among the Israeli public than their prime minister – a situation that provided him with special sway over the Israeli leader.

Combine Trump's connections in politics and business to key Arab players in the region, and he had a abundant diplomatic muscle to force an deal.

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, by contrast, the president has much less leverage. Over the past nine months, he has swung between attempts to pressure Putin and then the Ukrainian leader, all with little seeming effect.

Trump has warned to impose additional penalties on Russia's oil and gas sales and to provide Ukraine with advanced missile systems. But he has also recognised that such actions could harm the world's financial stability and further escalate 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 - then to retreat in the wake of worried European partners who caution a Ukrainian collapse could destabilise the entire region.

The president often boasts about his ability to meet and hammer out deals, but his face-to-face meetings with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders have not appeared to advance the war any nearer a peaceful end.

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

During the summer, Russia's leader agreed to a high-level meeting in Alaska just as it seemed probable that the president would approve on legislative penalties supported by GOP senators. That bill was afterwards delayed.

Recently, as news emerged that the US administration was considering seriously sending Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Ukraine, the president of Russia phoned the US president who then promoted the potential meeting in Hungary.

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

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

"As you are aware, I've been played throughout my career 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 less accessible for us – for Ukraine – the Russian side quickly became less interested in diplomacy," he stated.

So, in a matter of days, Trump has shifted from considering the idea of providing weapons to the Eastern European country to planning a meeting in Hungary with Putin and privately pressuring the Ukrainian president to surrender all of Donbas – including land Russia has been failed to capture.

He has finally settled on calling for a truce along current battle lines – a proposal the Russian government has refused to accept.

During his election campaign previously, the candidate vowed that he could resolve the conflict in Ukraine in a matter of hours. He has since discarded that pledge, saying that ending the war is turning out harder than he anticipated.

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