President Donald Trump's advisers held talks on Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and national security advisers from the UK, France and Germany to discuss the next steps in ending Russia's war in Ukraine, US 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.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Ukraine's top negotiator Rustem Umerov also participated.
Zelenskyy 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.
The US and Iran failed to reach an agreement to end their war despite marathon talks that concluded on Sunday in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, jeopardising a fragile ceasefire.
Russia and Ukraine accused each other on Sunday of breaching the 32-hour ceasefire in their four-year war, reporting more than a thousand drone and shelling attacks just hours after the truce began on Saturday to mark Orthodox Easter.
At least 30 people were killed on Saturday in a stampede at the Laferriere Citadel in the northern countryside of Haiti, authorities said, warning that the death toll could rise.
A cyclone battered New Zealand's North Island on Sunday, cutting power to thousands of residents and forcing hundreds to evacuate, as officials warned conditions would worsen through the day.
Negotiations between the United States and Iran appeared to have concluded for now, Iran's government has announced early on Sunday, after a series of talks in Pakistan to end the six-week war between Washington and Tehran.