LONDON - Euro zone bond yields held steady on Thursday, after rising relatively sharply for two days, as investors digested comments by U.S. President Donald Trump promising a swift end to the Ukraine war. 

Trump separately discussed the war on Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and told U.S. officials to begin talks on ending the nearly three-year-long conflict.

Germany's 10-year bond yield, the benchmark for the euro zone, was last flat at 2.475%. It rose 12 basis points (bps) over the previous two sessions to its highest in almost two weeks, partly driven by strong U.S. inflation data on Wednesday.

The two-year German bond yield, which is more sensitive to European Central Bank interest rate expectations, was flat at 2.127% after rising 11 bps over the last two sessions.

Italy's 10-year yield was down 1 bp at 3.553%, and the gap between Italian and German bond yields narrowed 1 bp to 108 bps.

(Reporting by Harry Robertson; Editing by Alex Richardson)