President Donald Trump's phone discussions with President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky this week are the most aggressive diplomatic efforts to end the crisis in Ukraine since Russia invaded three years ago, CNN reported.

Early indications are bleak, as Putin has declined to sign on to Trump's idea of a 30-day truce. But Trump portrays the start of any debate as a win. And each leader is attempting to use diplomacy to their advantage while also playing the public relations game, not to mention avoiding blame if everything fails.

The White House is manufacturing a fantasy of major progress both to keep the hopes of a peace process developing and to promote the increasingly flimsy assumption that Trump is a great dealmaker.

Uniquely capable of establishing peace.Putin categorically denied Trump's request for a ceasefire. Simply put, he is not ready to stop the war yet, as evidenced by a new set of criteria that Ukraine would never agree to if it wishes to exist as a sovereign state. However, the Kremlin does not want to alienate Trump, so it offered him a tempting peek of a high-power relationship with Putin to entice him, CNN revealed.

Zelensky is a quick learner. He can't afford a recurrence of the terrible Oval Office fiasco, so he simply agrees to practically everything Trump requests. Ironically, Zelensky's meltdown-inducing argument, that Putin cannot be trusted to make or keep cease-fire agreements, has now been proven correct.

Ukraine and Russia are vying for the president's attention and blaming each other for obstructing peace. After a chaotic night, one side accused the other of violating the partial deal mediated by the US president to avoid damaging energy infrastructure. Their dissatisfaction with even this little detail contradicts Trump's confident assurances that a peace deal is within grasp.