US held talks with Ukraine, European countries on next steps in ending Ukraine war, Witkoff says

Dec 31 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's advisers held talks on Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and national security advisers from the UK, France and Germany to discuss the next steps in ending Russia's war in Ukraine, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said.

"We focused on how to move the discussions forward in a practical way on behalf of @POTUS' peace process, including strengthening security guarantees and developing effective deconfliction mechanisms to help end the war and ensure it does not restart," Witkoff said in a social media post.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Ukraine's top negotiator Rustem Umerov also participated.

Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that national security advisers from Kyiv's "Coalition of the Willing" backers would meet in Ukraine on Saturday, and then country leaders would gather in France on January 6.

The Coalition grouping led by Britain and France includes more than 30 nations, though it was not immediately clear which would be taking part in the meetings.

(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones and Bhargav Acharya in Toronto; Editing by Doina Chiacu)