The Times of Israel is liveblogging Thursday’s events as they happen.

US President Donald Trump is “extremely frustrated” with Russia and Ukraine, his spokeswoman says, as Kyiv said Washington was still pushing it to make major territorial concessions as part of its plan to end the nearly four-year war.

“The president is extremely frustrated with both sides of this war,” Karoline Leavitt tells reporters. “He doesn’t want any more talk. He wants action. He wants this war to come to an end.”

Earlier Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made remarks that appeared to show little had changed in Washington’s core position on how the conflict should end since it sent a 28-point plan to Kyiv and Moscow last month that heavily favored Russia.

Zelensky said that Washington was still pushing it to cede land to Russia as part of an agreement to end the war that started with Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.

Washington wants only Ukraine, not Russia, to withdraw its troops from parts of the eastern Donetsk region, where a demilitarised “free economic zone” would be installed as a buffer between the two armies, Zelensky told reporters, including from AFP.

Under the latest US plan, Moscow would also stay where it is in the south of the country, but pull some of its troops out of Ukrainian regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not claimed to have annexed in the north.

Ukraine has been revising the original US proposal and this week sent a 20-point counter-proposal to Washington, the full details of which have not been published.

“We have two key points of disagreement: the territories of Donetsk and everything related to them, and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. These are the two topics we continue to discuss,” Zelensky told reporters at a briefing.

“They see Ukrainian forces leaving the territory of Donetsk region, and the supposed compromise is that Russian forces do not enter this territory… which they already call a ‘free economic zone’,” Zelensky said about the US plan.

Zelensky has long said he has no “constitutional” or “moral” right to cede Ukrainian land, and on Thursday said Ukrainians should have the final say on the issue.

“Whether through elections or a referendum, there must be a position from the people of Ukraine,” he said.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi says he will travel to Beirut for talks after receiving a formal invitation from his Lebanese counterpart, who a day earlier had declined to visit Tehran for direct talks.

On Wednesday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raji said “current conditions” prevented him from traveling to Tehran, but stressed that the move did not mean rejection of dialogue with Iran.

Raji told Reuters late on Wednesday that he had invited Araghchi “in a formal diplomatic letter to come to Beirut to hold talks.”

Araghchi says on X that he would “gladly accept the invitation to come to Beirut,” although he said he found Raji’s position “bemusing.” He says foreign ministers of countries with “full diplomatic relations” did not need a neutral venue to meet.

“Subjected to Israeli occupation and blatant ‘ceasefire’ violations, I fully understand why my esteemed Lebanese counterpart is not prepared to visit Tehran,” Araghchi adds.

Raji said on Wednesday that Lebanon was ready to open a new phase of relations with Iran based on mutual respect, sovereignty and non-interference.

He added that no strong state could be built unless the government held the exclusive right to bear arms, in an apparent reference to calls to disarm Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned Lebanese armed group.

The US demanded this week from Israel that it pay for the clearing of rubble from the Gaza Strip, and to be responsible for the massive engineering operation, Ynet reports, citing a senior Israeli official.

Israel agreed to the request, according to the report, which will cost up to one billion shekels.

The Prime Minister’s Office does not respond to requests for comment.

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