The European Union has given final approval to a 90-billion-euro ($105 billion) loan for Ukraine and a new round of sanctions on Russia, ending a prolonged deadlock after Hungary and Slovakia dropped their objections.

The measures were signed off after Ukraine restarted oil flows through the repaired Druzhba pipeline, which had been a key sticking point for Budapest and Bratislava.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas declared the "deadlock over," claiming that "Russia's war economy is under growing strain, while Ukraine is getting a major boost."

The row had held up EU support at a time when the United States has allegedly cut off Kyiv and eased sanctions on Russian oil exports amid the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Hungary's outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who recently suffered a crushing election defeat, had stalled the loan to pressure Ukraine into fixing the pipeline carrying Russian oil to his landlocked country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the approval, calling it "an important day for our defence and for our relations with the European Union." He urged that the first tranche be disbursed by May or June.

At the same time, the EU's 27 member states signed off on a new sanctions package against Moscow, the 20th since the invasion began in 2022. The measures target Russia's energy, banking, and trade sectors, including clamping down on the "shadow fleet" of aging tankers and curbs on cryptocurrency traders.

However, the EU stopped short of imposing a full maritime service ban for vessels carrying Russian crude, hoping to coordinate with G7 partners later.

The bloc also announced it was halting sales of certain machinery to Kyrgyzstan to prevent products from reaching Russia, marking the first use of such a mechanism to avoid sanctions circumvention.

Source: www.aljazeera.com