How Donald Trump Secured a Major Step in the Middle East Yet Faces Challenges With Putin Concerning Ukraine

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

Just days after Donald Trump said he intended to meet Russia's leader Vladimir Putin in Budapest - "within two weeks or so" - the high-level talks has been suspended indefinitely.

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

"I don't want to have a wasted meeting," Donald Trump told reporters at the executive mansion on a recent weekday. "I don't want a waste of time, so I will observe what transpires."

• Donald Trump says he did not want a 'wasted meeting' after arrangement for Putin talks postponed
• Letdown in Ukraine's capital as President Zelensky leaves White House without results

The on-again, off-again meeting is another development in the president's attempts to mediate an end to war in the Eastern European nation – a topic of renewed focus for the US president after he orchestrated a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal in Gaza.

While making remarks in Egypt recently to commemorate that ceasefire agreement, the president addressed his lead diplomatic negotiator, with a fresh directive.

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

Nonetheless, the circumstances that converged to make a Middle East success achievable for the negotiation 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 strike Hamas negotiators in the Gulf state. It was a move that angered America's Arab allies but provided Trump bargaining power to compel Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into making a deal.

The US president benefited from a long record of siding with Israel since his initial presidency, encompassing his decision to move the US embassy to the contested city, to change America's position on the legality of Jewish communities in the occupied territories and, in recent times, his support for Israeli defense operations against the Islamic Republic.

The American leader, in fact, is more popular among the Israeli public than Netanyahu – a position that provided him with special sway over the Israeli leader.

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

In the Ukraine war, by contrast, the president has significantly reduced leverage. In recent months, he has swung between efforts to pressure the Russian president and then the Ukrainian leader, all with little seeming effect.

The US leader has warned to enact additional penalties on Russia's oil and gas sales and to provide Ukraine with new long-range weapons. But he has also recognised that doing so could disrupt the world's financial stability and intensify the war.

Meanwhile, the president has criticized openly Ukraine's president, halting briefly information exchange with Ukraine and suspending arms shipments to the country - then to retreat in the wake of concerned European allies who caution a defeat of Ukraine could disrupt the entire region.

The president loves to tout his skill to meet and negotiate deals, but his face-to-face meetings with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders have not appeared to advance the hostilities any closer to a resolution.

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

During the summer, Putin agreed to a high-level meeting in Alaska at the time when it seemed probable that the president would sign off on legislative penalties supported by Senate Republicans. That legislation was subsequently put on hold.

Recently, as news emerged that the White House was considering seriously sending long-range missiles and Patriot anti-air batteries to Ukraine, the president of Russia called the US president who then promoted the possible summit in Hungary.

The next day, the president hosted Ukraine's leader at the White House, but left empty-handed after a allegedly strained discussion.

The US leader maintained that he was not being played by the Russian president.

"As you are aware, I've been played all my life by skilled operators, and I emerged successfully," he said.

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

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

So, in a matter of days, the president has bounced from entertaining the prospect of sending missiles to Ukraine to organizing a Budapest summit with Putin and privately urging the Ukrainian president to surrender the entire Donbas region – even land Russia has been failed to capture.

He has ultimately decided on advocating a ceasefire along current battle lines – something Russia has refused to accept.

On the campaign trail previously, the candidate vowed that he could resolve the Ukraine war in a matter of hours. He has since abandoned that commitment, saying that concluding the hostilities is proving more difficult than he expected.

It has been a rare acknowledgement of the limits of his power – and the difficulty of finding a peace plan when both parties wants, or is able to, give up the fight.