Last week, it seemed like another summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was tentatively scheduled to take place in Budapest, Hungary, within the next few weeks.

That presidential meeting now appears to have been indefinitely postponed, as Trump informed reporters that he would not be "wasting my time" on more fruitless discussions with his counterpart, according to the New York Post.

However, while the two leaders may not be getting together directly in the near future, talks reportedly remain ongoing between their top envoys, and there continues to be some optimism that a ceasefire deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war can still be achieved.

"I'm not going to be wasting my time"

Fox News reported that President Trump, while on board Air Force One in Qatar on his way to a series of high-level meetings in Asia, spoke to reporters about the apparent cancellation of his proposed upcoming summit with President Putin.

"I'm going to have to know that we're going to make a deal," Trump told the media. "I'm not going to be wasting my time. I've always had a great relationship with Vladimir Putin, but this has been very disappointing."

He went on to express his mistaken belief that he could arrange a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine "long before" he negotiated a peace deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, not to mention some of the other "very tough" conflicts around the globe that he's helped to end, and said, "I could say almost any one of the deals that I've already done, I thought would have been more difficult than Russia, than Ukraine, but it didn't work out that way."

Trump further lamented that there was "tremendous hatred" between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that stood in the way of any progress toward potential peace.

"Presidents cannot meet for the sake of meeting"

According to India's News18, a spokesman for Russia's Kremlin seemed to adopt a similar stance in suggesting that there was no reason for Presidents Trump and Putin to get together if a deal wasn't close at hand. Instead, talks will continue between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"Presidents cannot meet for the sake of meeting, they cannot just waste their time, and they are open about that," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "That’s why they instructed Lavrov and Rubio to prepare this process. The process is complicated."

The spokesman, however, went on to slam the recent move by the Trump administration to impose substantial economic sanctions on two of Russia's biggest energy producers, Lukoil and Rosneft, whose oil sales have kept the Russian economy going and helped fund Putin's war effort in Ukraine.

"Despite the various nuances voiced by the President of the United States, we must still be oriented towards our interests. Our interests are to build good relations with all countries, including the United States," Peskov said. "Of course, the actions that were taken this week were an unfriendly step. They have indeed damaged the prospects for resuscitating our relations. But that does not mean that we should abandon these aspirations. We should do what is favourable to us."

Optimism remains for a possible deal

RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty reported that while the tentative meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin appears to be off, at least for now, that doesn't mean that all hope is lost for a possible agreement and rescheduling of the summit in the near future.

Just days earlier, Putin's top envoy for the economy and investments, Kirill Dmitriev, suggested that significant progress had been made behind the scenes toward negotiating a ceasefire or peace deal that all parties could agree to.

"I believe Russia and the U.S. and Ukraine are actually quite close to a diplomatic solution," he told reporters earlier this week, though he declined to offer any details in support of that assertion.